Nationally Recognized Poets Headline Women and Gender Studies Event

The Women and Gender Studies spring event brought nationally recognized poets Siaara Freeman and Rachel Wiley before a packed audience on March 20 for an unforgettable reading on black queer embodiment.

The poets had a lively and interactive exchange with students after the reading, offering advice and commentary on writing, black queer identity, and social justice activism.

Freeman is a 2017 Poetry Foundation Fellow whose work appears in journals such as the Tinderbox Journal, FreezeRay, Crab Fat, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Black Napkin Press. In 2017, she published #goodmorning #hoodwarning with HMO publishing, and she has upcoming work in the Offing. Her first full-length chapbook, Raised by the Dead, comes out this year from honeysucklepress.

Wiley’s work has appeared on Upworthy, The Huffington Post, The Militant Baker, Everyday Feminism and PBS News Hour. Her first poetry collection, Fat Girl Finishing School, was published in 2014 by Timber Mouse Publishing. Her second collection, Nothing is Okay, was published in March 2018 by Button Poetry and spent some time as Amazon’s #1 Gay & Lesbian Poetry Collection.