Buffalo Area Poetry & Literature Calendar (week of April 22-April 29)

Thursday, 12:15 p.m. -1:30 p.m.: Buffalo State University's Emanuel Fried Drop Hammer Reading Series featuring memoirist and young adult novelist Nancy McCabe.

McCabe is the author of nine books, most recently the memoir Can This Marriage Be Saved? (Missouri 2020), the young adult novel Vaulting Through Time (CamCat 2023), the comic novel The Pamela Papers (Outpost 19 2024), and the forthcoming middle grade novel Fires Burning Underground (Fitzroy/Regal House 2025). Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Salon, Fourth Genre, Prairie Schooner, Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, Writer’s Digest, LARB, and many other publications. McCabe directs the creative and professional writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. Ketchum Hall, Room 218. SUNY Buffalo State University. Free and open to the public.

Thursday, 8 p.m.: Just Buffalo Literary Center BABEL Series Lecture by and discussion with author and educator Kiese Laymon. Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. In his observant, often hilarious work, Laymon does battle with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place. His savage humor and clear-eyed perceptiveness have earned him comparisons to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Walker, and Mark Twain. He is the author of the award-winning memoir Heavy, the groundbreaking essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and the genre-defying novel Long Division.
 

Laymon’s memoir Heavy (Scribner, 2018) won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable—an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family. The recipient of an NAACP Image Award for fiction, Laymon is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

In his talk and conversation with Just Buffalo Artistic Director Barbara Cole, Laymon will discuss his 2018 memoir Heavy and how it relates to subsequent work.

Kleinhans Music Hall, 3 Symphony Circle, Buffalo. $42. Visit

https://www.justbuffalo.org/ for tickets to the event, which also include an online livestreaming option.

Friday, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.: The Buffalo AKG Art Gallery presents and open mic poetry evening with Jillian Hanesworth. Join former Buffalo Poet Laureate Jillian Hanesworth for an evening of poetry and community. Gather to honor those we lost on May 14 and hear a featured set of poetry from Hanesworth, including poems from the Buffalo AKG Art Gallery exhibit Before and After Again. Poets are invited to share an original piece. Poets are also encouraged to visit the exhibition, and sign-ups are encouraged.
 

Jillian Hanesworth is an EMMY-nominated spoken word artist, Poet Laureate emeritus of the City of Buffalo, New York, and a community organizer and activist. Jillian was born and raised on the east side of Buffalo, where she developed a vision to use art and advocacy to help her community reimagine justice and work together to create a system where all people can thrive. Currently, Jillian travels the country performing poetry and speaking on various topics, including art for activism, the impacts of storytelling, and the importance of honest and critical social and political conversations. In addition, Jillian oversees “Buffalo Books," a nationally recognized program which aims to improve access to culturally relevant books for residents of the east side of Buffalo with the hopes of helping to increase literacy rates among Black and brown communities.

Lipsey Auditorium, Knox Building, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, 1285 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Friday, 6 p.m. to  8 p.m.: Fourth Friday Reading Series Poetry at Dog Ears Books. This month’s featured reader is poet Joshua Herbert. Additional reading slots available. $5 donation goes to Dog Ears Foundation. Dog Ears Books and Cafe, 688 Abbott Road, Buffalo.

Saturday, 3:30 p.m.: Internationally award-winning poet Robert Giannetti will present a program entitled “The Madness of the World,” at the Lewiston Public Library, 305 S. Eighth Street, Lewiston, NY . Giannetti will present a new program of poetic writings on madness, drawing on his own work and that of others included in a 2023 worldwide poetry anthology on that theme. Free and open to the public.