21st Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards Guild Complex Guild Complex

Tue 09/27 @ 7p - Twenty semi-finalists present their poetry for the 23rd Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards to compete for $500 prize in front of a live voting audience.


09/27/16 - 09/27/16

7p


Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) founded the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award twenty-two years ago. Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas and lived in Chicago for the rest of her life. She was the author of more than twenty volumes of poetry and numerous other books.

Her many awards and honors include Poet Laureate of Illinois, Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, American Academy of Arts and Letters award, a Pulitzer Prize, the Frost Medal, a National Endowment for the Arts award, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Past GBOMA winners include Sename Amagashie, Lucy Anderton, Tara Betts, C.C. Carter, Stephanie Gentry-Fernandez, Marian Hayes, Tricia Hersey, Tyehimba Jess, Langston Kerman, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Nate Marshall, Sage Morgan-Hubbard, Stephanie Rose Perez, Tristan Silverman, Dan "Sully" Sullivan, Mark Turcotte, Deepak Unnikrishnan, and Javon Smith.

The 23rd Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards is presented in partnership with the Chopin Theatre, Wicker Park, Chicago.