David A.N. Jackson Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, August 31

David A. N. Jackson will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, August 31.

Also featured will be Cheeraz Gormon and Treasure Shields Redmond.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

David A. N. Jackson is a multidisciplinary performer who's graced local, regional and national stages at a number of venues. He is an actor, visual artist, wood carver, drum carver and percussionist as well as a poet.

Known around the city and throughout the region as D'Poet, David A. N. Jackson has long been appreciated as a profound and enlightened artist of multiple gifts, talents and abilities. He is an ever-evolving and accomplished percussionist, wood sculptor, artist, poet, and vocalist, just to list a few of his skills, as well as an avid community activist and teacher.

Imbalance of the Spirit

like the breath of stagnant water
family should not be
upbringing
And not just on memories
instantly sensed
It is not true, after all,
to be born.
toward evolution
listen with attention
for an initial rendezvous
This creature is called a
Heart Chakra
make very careful study
loosen heavy soil and leave it
Planted beside peach trees
Deep-rooting
at the heart

-- David A. N. Jackson
(c) D'POET 07.03.2015

Cheeraz Gormon Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, August 31

Cheeraz Gormon will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, August 31.

Also featured will be David A. N. Jackson and Treasure Shields Redmond.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Cheeraz Gormon is a life-long activist, internationally touring spoken word artist and published poet, documentary photographer turned award-winning advertising copywriter. Cheeraz is currently founder, strategist and storyteller of Alchemy 7 Creative located in St. Louis, Missouri.

Click here to listen to "Words" by Cheeraz Gormon; music by Brothers Lazaroff (Maurice Mo Egeston remix of "I Could Stay Here For the Rest My Life."

Beautiful Boy

In loving memory of a young man I never met... for Terrence Sands

Beautiful boy
No one told you
That this world would be so cruel
That the cold would brush against your soul
And chafe it
Exposing you to pain
That your mother dreamed of protecting you from
As she watched her belly expand
And that your father
Upon seeing that you were a reflection of him
A manchild
Perhaps swallowed a deep breath
Held it for as long as he could
In hopes that the empty space would make a path for you

I am a stranger to you
But not to the ways of this world
That you faced
Until your eyes drifted

Beautiful boy
You have become an ancestor way too soon
Your meeting with manhood
Too short

Beautiful boy
I hope you know that your skin was Black
But you were never soiled
As this world may have made you believe
Know that you were beautiful, boy

You are now free
To be what you may have always known you were

Beautiful boy
Fly
And be
Beautiful

-- Cheeraz Gormon

Treasure Shields Redmond Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts on Monday, August 31

Treasure Shields Redmond will be a featured reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, August 31.

Also featured will be David A. N. Jackson and Cheeraz Gormon.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is free.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

A Mississippi native, Treasure Shields Redmond is a St. Louis based poet, performer and educator. She has published poetry in such notable anthologies as Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Breaking Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade; and in journals that include the Sou'wester and the African American Review.

She has received a fellowship to the FineArts Works Center, and her poem, "around the time of medgar" was nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize. Treasure is a Cave Canem fellow and has received an MFA from the University of Memphis. Presently, she divides her time between being an assistant professor of English at Southwestern Illinois College, and doctoral studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

caveat

the celluloid vision of jackie o
reflexively reaching for kennedy's brains;
too fast for even her
aristocratic hands.
did she think
she could put it all back together?
her archival papers
(now cool to the touch)
reveal she knew of his philandering --
her mother counseled her to stay .
so maybe that reflexive jump
on the back of a motorcade
was not as mothers flinch,
watching deathless sons
in football games.
but more as a runner,
anticipating the crisp gun shot.

-- Treasure Shields Redmond