The Hunger I Felt
KAZIM ALI and an ensemble of illustrious poets

6:15 pm – 7:45 pm
31st Street & Barclay Street
Waverly Neighborhood

CityLit Stage ends the festival day on a high note in an eclectic poetic journey with esteemed poets from across and beyond the region. With UNIQUE ROBINSON serving as host, we feature readings by poet KAZIM ALI with KIM JENSEN, SYLVIA FOX, and the first public reading of the newly-named 11th Maryland Poet Laureate, spoken word artist LADY BRION. Lady Brion is the youngest and the second Black poet to be recognized in this role, following the beloved Lucille Clifton who served from 1979 – 1982 as the second woman and the first Black to hold this position. Lady Brion is an award-winning spoken word artist, educator, and organizer. She currently serves as the founder and executive director of the Black Arts District. Two of Kazim Ali’s recent works include Indian Winter (a novel) and a poetry collectin Sukun (means serenity) and draws from six collections, “allowing us to take the measure of his art: the close attention to the spiritual and the visceral, and the deep language play that is both musical and plain spoken.” Sylvia Fox is a Berlin-based Brazilian-American writer whose work explores folklore, mysticism, grief, and the places she has called home. Her debut verse novella Little Fish will be published in 2025 with Blue Cactus Press. Kim Jensen is a Baltimore-based poet, author, translator, teacher, and social justice activist who has family ties to Palestine. She has published countless poems, stories, and articles as well as three books. Through her many forms of engagement, she tries to nurture an understanding that social consciousness, education, the arts, and cultural resistance represent a single human gesture toward a transcendent, healing love. Unique Robinson is a poet, performer, and professor from Baltimore, MD, and is currently the Director of MICA’s MFA Community Arts Program.  CityLit honors Michael Rothenberg recognizing this day as part of the global 100 Thousand Poets for Change Day.

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KAZIM ALI’s books encompass multiple genres, including the volumes of poetry Inquisition, Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue; and the cross-genre texts Bright Felon and Wind Instrument. His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet and his hybrid memoirs include, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies and Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice. He is also an accomplished translator and an editor of several anthologies and criticisms. After a career in public policy and organizing, Ali taught at various colleges and universities. He is currently a Professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing, and chair of the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. His newest books are Sukun: New and Selected Poems, and the novel Indian Winter.

www.kazimali.com
Instagram: @kazimalipoet
X: @KazimAliPoet

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LADY BRION is an international spoken word artist, activist, organizer, and educator. Lady Brion currently serves as the executive director of the Black Arts District. In 2024 she was appointed by Governor Wes Moore as the Poet Laureate of Maryland, making her the youngest Poet Laureate in Maryland’s history and the only spoken word artist to ever hold this position. She received her B.A. in Communication and Culture from Howard University and her MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Design from the University of Baltimore. During her slam career, she has won the 2016 and 2021 National Poetry Slam, the 2017 and 2019 Southern Fried Regional Slam, and the 2019 Rustbelt Regional Slam. In 2021 she became the Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion making her the number 1 ranked woman slam poet in the world.

www.ladybrion.com
Instagram: @ladybspeaks

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SYLVIA FOX is a Brazilian-American writer whose work explores folklore, mysticism, inherited trauma, grief, and the places and people she has called home. She loves art that blurs genre lines and is especially drawn to the ways that the most difficult stories require hybrid forms and spaces in their tellings. Sylvia received an MFA in Creative Writing from UNLV, but before that she used to live in Baltimore, volunteering for CityLit to support events like this very one. She continues to support literary programming and community in her current home in Berlin. You can find Sylvia’s work in the Little Patuxent Review, the Acentos Review, Harpur Palate, and Stadtsprachen Magazine. Her debut verse novella Little Fish will be published in Spring 2025 with Blue Cactus Press.

Instagram: @fox.tales

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KIM JENSEN is a Baltimore-based writer, poet, educator, and translator who has lived in California, France, and Palestine. Her experimental novel, The Woman I Left Behind, about a turbulent love affair between a young US student and a Palestinian refugee was a finalist for Forward Magazine’s book of the year. Her two collections of poems, Bread Alone and The Only Thing That Matters, were published by Syracuse University Press. Active in transnational peace and social justice movements for decades, Kim’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Anthropocene, Modern Poetry in Translation, Decolonial Passage, Transition, Anomaly, Action, Spectacle, International Human Rights Arts Festival, Another Chicago Magazine, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Extraordinary Rendition: Writers Speak Out on Palestine, Gaza Unsilenced, Bomb Magazine, Sukoon, Mizna, Revista el Humo, Left Curve, Liberation Literature, and many others. In 2001, she won the Raymond Carver Award for short fiction. Kim is currently a professor of English and Creative Writing at the Community College of Baltimore County, where she co-founded an interdisciplinary literacy initiative that demonstrates the vital connection between classroom learning and social justice in the broader community.

www.kimjensen.org
Instagram: @kim_jensen66

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UNIQUE ROBINSON is a poet/MC, professor, community educator, host, and proud Baltimore native. She received her MFA in English/Creative Writing from Mills College and a BA in Creative Writing/Black Studies from Hampshire College. Creatively, her work engages the power of language to transmute systemic harm. Professionally, Unique has a background in Community Organizing and national Reproductive Justice work, and is a lifelong activist, with 20+ years of performance experience throughout the US and Havana, Cuba. She was the cover feature for Baltimore Magazine’s GameChangers in 2022, and has released a variety of books, zines, short films, and musical projects, which are available on all streaming platforms. Her latest book of poetry, (not) in service, published by homie house press, was released in 2024. Unique is the Director of MICA’s MFA Community Arts Program, and a writing workshop facilitator with intergenerational communities, promoting healing through creativity.

https://bakerartist.org/portfolios/uniqmical
Instagram: @unique.theword