# Event Details - **Event Name**: Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering - **Event Start and End Date**: Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 07:00 pm – Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 09:00 pm - **Event Description**: Featuring poetry by dr. dez brown, Derrick Austin, H. Melt, Kenyatta Rogers, Tara Betts, and MARS.About this Event✦ Join us at Pilsen Community Books for an incredible night of poetry as we celebrate celebrate they/she/he: ritual to forget your (un)becoming by dezireé a. brown. The evening will feature poetry performances by dr. dez brown, Derrick Austin, H. Melt, Kenyatta Rogers, Tara Betts, and MARS. ✦they/she/he: ritual to forget your (un)becoming by dezireé a. brown is a momentous debut, tracking a self-proclaimed antihero’s quest for liberation via the transformative ritual of writing through the past, present, and future. Influenced by video game worlds, choose-your-own adventures, and a multifaceted collective of Mesopotamian goddesses, this collection is a conjuring of selves encountered through gender who arise to meet one another in all their Black queer joy and rage.✦ Free & open to all lovers of literature.Featured Readers:Derrick Austin’s (he/him) new book of poems is This Elegance (Boa Editions, 2026). His other poetry collections include Tenderness (Boa Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and Trouble the Water (Boa Editions, 2016), which was selected by Mary Szybist for the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize. His other honors include the 2026 AICA-USA Art Critics Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Traveling Poetry Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, and the Ron Wallace Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. He lives in Chicago.H. Melt (they/them) is the author of There Are Trans People Here, which won the Heartland Booksellers Award, selected by independent booksellers across the Midwest. They edited the anthology Subject to Change: Trans Poetry & Conversation. H. Melt attended the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat, the Tin House Workshop, and was an artist-in-residence at the Newberry Library, researching the Chicago Protest Collection.Kenyatta Rogers (he/him) is a Cave Canem fellow and has been awarded scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His work has been previously published in or forthcoming from the Academy of American Poets, Poetry, Jubilat, Bat City Review, The Volta, PANK, and MAKE Magazine, among others. Rogers is a lead teacher for the Poetry Foundation’s Teacher Institute. He serves on the board of directors for AWP and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he is a cohost of the Sunday Reading Series with Simone Muench and lives in Chicago. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming in 2027 from Trio House Press.Tara Betts (she/her) is the author of Refuse to Disappear, Break the Habit, and Arc & Hue. She is a professor in the Peace Studies program at DePaul University and part of the faculty at the Solstice MFA program at Lasell University. Her poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies. She is working on several new projects.Born and raised in Detroit, MI – MARS. (they/them) is a writer, film photographer, and the author of FLOWER BOI (Gold Line Press, 2022). They earned an MSW from Wayne State University and an MFA from Randolph College. Their work has appeared in Four Way Review, Obsidian Literature & Arts for the African Diaspora, Foglifter, and elsewhere. MARS. is the recipient of the 2021 Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Arts Fellowship and the 2019 Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Fellowship in Poetry. They currently live and love in Chicago.dr. dez brown (they/he), publishing as dezireé a. brown, is a Black queer nonbinary and transmasculine Pushcart Prize–nominated poet and interdisciplinary scholar, born and raised in Flint, MI. Their debut collection of poetry, , was the winner of the Joe W. Bratcher Prize and a finalist for the 2026 Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature. Often claiming to have been born with a poem written across his chest, he spends much of his time gaming and plays a mean hand of spades. Follow them online at @deziree.the.writer.Accessibility Notes:✦ Pilsen Community Books is fully ADA-accessible. The bookstore and its event space feature wide aisles and a portable wheelchair ramp for the main entrance. The venue also includes an ADA-accessible restroom, and aisles are kept clear to navigate https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events9/banners/25533c40-8281-11f1-8a8c-3fe57d70e589-rimg-w752-h740-dca7a9a5-gmir.jpg - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/chicago/celebrating-they-she-he-a-poetry-reading-and-gathering/100001991016912181 - **Event Categories**: art, literary-art, workshops, entertainment, business, trips-adventures, conferences - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 - **Event Highlights**: - Age Limit: all_ages - door_time: 2026-07-22T23:45:00Z - Duration: 2 hours - Location: Pilsen Community Books - Languages: English ## Ticket Details - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: USD ## Event venue details - **city**: Chicago - **state**: IL - **country**: United States - **location**: Pilsen Community Books - **lat**: 41.8576214 - **long**: -87.6650204 - **full address**: Pilsen Community Books, 1531 West 18th Street, Chicago, United States ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events9/banners/ef37ecf9d1f48047127c645dca435345dcc418eaeb520ce4f59223a622caca8c-rimg-w1000-h500-dc651b17-gmir.jpg?v=1780963368 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering being held? - **A:** Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering takes place on Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 07:00 pm to Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 09:00 pm at Pilsen Community Books, 1531 West 18th Street, Chicago, United States. - **Q**: Who is organizing Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering? - **A:** Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering is organized by Host Publications. - **Q**: Who is this event for? Is it right for me? - **A:** Celebrating they/she/he: A Poetry Reading and Gathering is ideal for art lovers, collectors, creatives, and anyone inspired by visual arts, installations, and exhibitions. Whether you're a first-time attendee or a longtime enthusiast in Chicago, this event is thoughtfully curated to deliver a standout experience worth every moment. 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