Simple Gifts Presents: Trans Poet, Evelyn Berry -w- Music by Emily Wright, Hand Pan Player

Evelyn Berry is the trans, Southern author of Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024) and the chapbooks Buggery (Bateau Press, 2020) and T4T (Small Harbor Editions, 2026). She is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and South Carolina Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship for Poetry. She is the winner of the BOOM Chapbook Prize, Button Poetry Short Form Contest, Dr. Linda Veldheer Memorial Prize, KAKALAK Poetry Prize, Emrys Poetry Prize, Broad River Prize for Prose, and other honors. Her work has appeared in dozens of journals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Raleigh Review, The Normal School, Gigantic Sequins, Longleaf Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in Columbia, SC with her partners and their cats.
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Emily Wright, intuitive Hand Pan player weaves together 432 hertz tones to offer a fresh listening experience-setting intention to help reset your nervous system, calming the mind and body.
Emily has been playing the unique steel drum for two years; however, as a 1997 Lander University graduate with her BA in English, she professes, "Writing is my first love". Recently, Emily's greatest joy has been combining her love of the hand pan, her knowledge frequency, vibration, hertz and the history of written and spoken languages to offer insight into how these significant subjects relate to one another and effects each has on our human experience.
She is the creator of the newly established SOUND WITH SEMANTICS. A two night/three day retreat providing depth, analyzation of the words we chose to use in our daily lives conjoined with an exploration of the origin and power of sound. Emily's ultimate hope is that we learn to be more aware and intentional in our energetic and verbal communication with self and others.
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Simple Gifts is organized and hosted by Larry Rhu & Al Black - open mic to follow (original content only).