Past Events

Join us for a reading and celebration of the diverse voices, rich experiences, and powerful words of poets from around the country, and the world. Poets working in the online...

All are welcome to the opening of the exhibition Diana Solís: Encuentros, Photographs of Chicago Poetry Communities, 1978–1994.

Join us for a live recording of A Collaborative Close reading of poems by Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué, hosted by Al Filreis and featuring guest poets Laynie Browne, Lisa Fishman, and Gabriel...

Join us for Dreaming Ages, an in-person installment of the Open Door series with Zachary Cahilll, Ama Codjoe, Calvin Forbes, Maud Lavin, Sungjae Lee, and Jenny Lin. The Open Door...

All are welcome to this in-person monthly space dedicated to reading, discussing, and writing poetry. Led by Contextos author Tim Cox and Maggie Queeney of the Poetry Foundation, we will...

Join us for a poetry reading and conversation with Maya Marshall and Nicole Homer in partnership with Haymarket Books.

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop led by Maggie Queeney. In this session we explore persona, a dramatic, mask-like character the poet creates, assumes, and...

Join us at Illinois Humanities for a multimedia poetry event with Sylvia Ewing in partnership with the Center for Black Verse.

All are welcome to a monthly book group moderated by library staff. In September, we will read and discuss All the Blood Involved in Love by Maya Marshall.  Registration is required...

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop led by Maggie Queeney. In this session we explore the fragment, defined by Anne Janowitz as “a partial whole—either...

All are welcome to to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop, “All About Self Love,” created and led by Christiana Castillo.  In the workshop “All About Self Love,” participants will be...

All are welcome to this in-person monthly space dedicated to reading, discussing, and writing poetry. Led by Contextos author Tim Cox and Maggie Queeney of the Poetry Foundation, we will...

Join us for a virtual reading featuring the 2022 Forms & Features Visiting Teaching Artists: Megan Fernandes, Bethanie Humphreys, Leonora Simonovis, Leigh Sugar, Andrew Venell, and Jorrell Watkins.

Weekly storytime that introduces poetry through fun, interactive readings, songs, and art projects!

Join us for a live in-person reading with Jared Brown, Stevie Cisneros Hanley, Briana Lynn, and Mila Methvin. The Open Door series highlights creative relationships in Chicago, including mentorship and...

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop led by Maggie Queeney. In this session we explore tone, a complex of attitudes toward the poem’s subject and...

All are welcome to a monthly book group moderated by library staff. In August, we will read and discuss The Maybe-Bird by Jennifer Elise Foerster . Registration is required for this...

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop led by Maggie Queeney. In this session, we explore the haibun, an ancient Japanese form that fuses prose and...

All are welcome to to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop, “The Poetry of Glossolalia,” created and led by Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí. In this session, we will discuss glossolalia as a...

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop led by Maggie Queeney. In this session, we focus on our voices, on and off the page. The group...