On Friday, July 30, from 6:30 to 9 PM, Chicago poets will go where no poet has gone before: to the new underground polar bear pool viewing room at the Brookfield Zoo. In celebration of the opening of the new Language of Conservation exhibit that will display poetry throughout the zoo's new seven acre Great Bear Wilderness, you are invited to a grand tour, followed by an evening of tapas, wine and poetry featuring CJ Laity, Bonnie T. Summers, Charlie Rossiter and Marilyn Peretti. This promises to be a once in a lifetime poetry event! Tickets are on sale now for only $80 but they are limited, so click here to register or call (708) 688-8355.
ABOUT THE POETS:
Marilyn Peretti has written two books of poetry about cranes, of which many species are endangered. Her poems have been published in Seeding the Snow, Christian Science Monitor, Black Bear Review, Prairie Light Review, California Quarterly, and Poetry Cram Magazine. ChicagoPoetry.com named Marilyn Peretti's book Let Wings Take You, one of the Seven Wonders of the Poetry World. For more information about Marilyn Peretti, see pagesbyperetti.com.
NEA Fellowship recipient Charlie Rossiter hosts the audio website poetrypoetry.com. He is the author of four books of poetry and is also the co-author of the beat poetry retrospective Back Beat. His performance poetry has been featured on National Public Radio and at the Chicago Blues Festival. Rossiter is a recipient of a Red Wheel Barrow Award from Pudding House Publications for his collection What Men Talk About.
Bonnie T. Summers is a member of the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. Her poetry has appeared in Woman Made Gallery's Her Mark Calendar, Moon Journal Magazine, After Hours Magazine and Peninsula Pulse. She has been a recipient of the Guild Complex Prose Series Award. Among other things, she writes about grizzly bears, giraffe's, serpents and seals.
CJ Laity is the publisher of ChicagoPoetry.com and has been active as a poetry advocate in the city of Chicago for over two decades, organizing, hosting and participating in poetry events for the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair, the Poetry Foundation's Printers' Ball, the Chicago Public Library's Annual Poetry Fest, the AWP Conference, the Society of Professional Journalists' Conference, and for many other events over the years.
