Power Tripping

The Poetry Foundation presents a “power tripping” lineage of truth-telling and disruptive art. Legendary performance artist Karen Finley of the notorious “NEA Four” returns to Chicago with her new poetry book COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, uncensored as ever. Also returning to her hometown is Jada Renée Allen, reading from Drill, a Chicago-focused project interrogating the intersections of policing, protest, and the pained body. Chicago multimedia artist Odette Stout performs queer poetry with otherworldly augmented digital images. Closing out the evening, Ruby Que and Ale Campos’s multimedia collaboration finds poetry in the shadows of projection and drag. 

“Make art not hate
Be public with your art
Don’t take soul for granted
Our bodies are ours”
—Karen Finley,

This event is part of the Poetry Foundation’s spring 2025 season, Power Lines.

Additional Information

• All Poetry Foundation events are completely free of charge and open to the public.
• Advanced registration is encouraged.
• The performance space is ADA-compliant and wheelchair-accessible.
• The program will feature CART captioning and ASL interpretation.

For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.

Host or Publisher Poetry Foundation