“I don't want to be rich
I want enough coin
to relax
to spoil
my damn self to tend to the baby
gasping and rooting for milk
without worrying
about ruining
my good dress.”
— Brittany Rogers, “Money”
Urban Arts Space is thrilled to be part of the book tour for Good Dress, a captivating debut poetry collection by Brittany Rogers. Join us to hear work from the author alongside Columbus-based poet Hanif Abdurraqib, who will engage in a discussion and Q&A. The event will conclude with a book signing where participants can purchase Good Dress by Brittany Rogers and There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib. Attendees can also enjoy free snacks and drinks, along with live painting from local artist Arris' J. Cohen. This event is hosted by Ajanaé Dawkins, Urban Arts Space's 2024 Community Artist-in-Residence.
Doors open at 6:30 PM, with readings beginning at 7:00 PM! Please note that seating is on a first come, first serve basis, with only 75 chairs available.
Poet Bios:
Brittany Rogers is a poet, visual artist, essayist, high school teacher, and lifelong Detroiter. Audacity is the overarching concept that activates her creative process; as a Black queer femme, Brittany is fascinated by the boldness and risk taking that daily survival necessitates. As such, her explorations of audacity often lead to an interrogation of the connections between the audacity of Black women and pleasure, longing, autonomy, the erotic, adornment, coming of age, and matrilineage.
Brittany’s creative work pokes at the notions of respectability, ownership, beauty, and obligation, and is constantly looking to subvert the heteronormative and patriarchal expectations that are placed upon Black femmes. She has work published or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Apogee, Indiana Review, Four Way Review, Underbelly, Mississippi Review, The Metro Times, “The BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic,” Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Lambda Literary, and Oprah Daily. She is Editor-In-Chief of Muzzle Magazine and co-host of VS Podcast. Her debut collection, Good Dress, was released by Tin House Press.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. His book A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance was the winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burns Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named one of the books of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School. His most recent book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, is a National Book Award Nominee for Nonfiction.
Ajanaé Dawkins is an interdisciplinary poet, performance artist, and theologian with work published or forthcoming or in The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, the Indiana Review, Frontier Poetry, The BreakBeat Poets Black Girl Magic Anthology and more. She is the author of Blood-flex (New Delta Review), winner of the 2024 New Delta Review Chapbook Prize. Dawkins is the 2024 Community Artist-in-Residence at Urban Arts Space and lives in Columbus, Ohio. Ajanaé was the Taft Museum’s 2022 Duncanson Artist in Residence and is a fellow of Torch Literary Arts, The Watering Hole, and Pink Door. She has a Bachelors in English from The University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.F.A. in poetry from Randolph College and a Masters of Theology from Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Ajanaé Dawkins is currently a co-host of the VS Podcast with the Poetry Foundation and the Theology Editor for the EcoTheo Review. You can find her in the middle of the dance floor, at the skate rink, the local winery, library, karaoke night, or in her kitchen cooking something slow.
