EARTHLY GODS | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Sep 29, 2024 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Sep 29, 2024 6:00 pm
14th & V
In this remarkable debut, Ram maps a new kind of coming of age and reckons—through exacting narrative and inventive approaches to form—with the renovations required in divining one’s own mythology. As these poems tend gender, culture, and inheritances of many kinds, they also lend rare and well-crafted insight into how language accompanies us into a future we couldn’t know to expect. –Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level
EARTHLY GODS is a collection written by an Indo-Guyanese, first generation, daughter of immigrants who is grappling with the expectations of the world around her. The poems explore expectations surrounding inheritance, mental health, sexuality, motherhood, romantic and platonic relationships, and more. At its heart, this collection is a coming of age narrative, one where the speaker has to 5ind out who she wants to be when faced with who everyone around her wants her to be.
Jessica Nirvana Ram is joining us on the Busboys stage alongside author Chet’la Sebree and poet Tony Keith Jr. to celebrate her debut and dive deeper into the themes of this collection. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Ram will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of EARTHLY GODS will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Jessica Nirvana Ram is an Indo-Guyanese poet. She is the author of the poetry collection Earthly Gods (Variant Literature, 2024), which was a finalist with the National Poetry Series, and the chapbook in the aftermath (Prismatica Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Prairie Schooner, Honey Literary, and elsewhere. Jessica was a 2022-23 Stadler Fellow, she currently works as the Publicity and Outreach Manager for the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts. She is the Director of Sticky Fingers at Honey Literary, a poetry reader for Split Lip Magazine and Okay Donkey Magazine, a poetry editor for Variant Literature, and an Associate Editor for West Branch.
Chet’la Sebree is the author of Field Study, winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Mistress, a 2020 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry nominee. For her work, Chet’la has received fellowships from Baldwin for the Arts, the Delaware Division of the Arts, the Hawthornden Foundation, Hedgebrook, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, MacDowell, the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Stadler Center for Poetry, the Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo, where she received the 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Residency for Collaborative Teams. Currently, she is an assistant professor at George Washington University and visiting faculty in the Low-Residency MFA program at Randolph College.
Tony Keith Jr., PhD is an award-winning Black gay poet, spoken word artist, and Hip Hop educational leader from Washington DC. He is author of How the Boogeyman Became a Poet - a young adult memoir in verse, and Knucklehead - a forthcoming poetry collection; both works published by HarperCollins. A multi-year fellow of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Tony has featured performances at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral, Historic Lincoln Theatre, Bus Boys & Poets, and in schools and communities in Johannesburg, South Africa, Arusha Tanzania. He is Founder and CEO of Ed Emcee Academy and resides in DC's Ward 7 with his husband Harry Christian III.
