January Blue Hour Featuring Jimin Seo and Tarik Dobbs

The Chicago Poetry Center presents BLUE HOUR, a free monthly in-person reading series and generative writing workshop. Our January featured readers are Jimin Seo and Tarik Dobbs.

Each event takes place at Haymarket House (800 W. Buena) and includes a brief open mic followed by two featured poets. Pre-registration is free and recommended. The open mic includes five readers drawn lottery-style from a hat that goes out at 7 p.m. The reading starts promptly at 7:30. Each open mic poet reads one poem or for three minutes, whichever comes first.

ABOUT THE FEATURES:

Jimin Seo was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated to the US to join his family at the age of eight. He earned his MFA from Columbia University and BA from Florida State University. He is the author of "OSSIA," a winner of The Changes Book Prize judged by Louise Glück. His poems can be found in Action Fokus, The Canary, LitHub, Pleiades, mercury firs, and The Bronx Museum. His most recent projects were Poems of Consumption with H. Sinno at the Barbican Centre in London, and a site activation for salazarsequeromedina's Open Pavilion at the 4th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.

Tarik Dobbs is a writer, artist, and Poetry Foundation Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow. Poems by Dobbs have been featured in the anthologies Best New Poets and Heaven Looks Like Us, as well as in AGNI, American Poetry Review, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Dobbs is the director of poetry.onl and has served as a guest editor at Mizna and Zoeglossia: A Community for Poets with Disabilities. Dobbs holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and an M.F.A. in art, theory, practice from Northwestern University. Dobbs is assistant professor of English in creative writing (poetry) at Southwest Minnesota State University. The debut poetry collections by Dobbs, "Nazar Boy" (2024) and "Dearbornistan" (forthcoming), are from Haymarket Books.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION: The mission of the Chicago Poetry Center is to connect people and poetry, equitably engage poets with communities, and foster creative literacy in the city and beyond. Learn more about our programs at www.poetrycenter.org.

ABOUT THE SPACE - Accessibility, Health, & Safety:

- All restrooms at Haymarket House are gender-neutral, including single-user and stalled restrooms.

- Each event includes ASL interpretation. Haymarket House is ADA compliant and fully wheelchair-accessible; email [email protected] to ensure ramp access and with any other accessibility needs.

- Masks are strongly encouraged for all indoor events, and the space is equipped with a professional air filtration system.

PARKING: Limited free and paid street parking is available near Haymarket House. The parking lot at Disney Magnet School is relatively close and is a paid lot; there are also locations nearby available through SpotHero.

Looking for the Workshop? Register here.

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