Thrash, Tillman to give poetry readings

Poets Venus Thrash and Cedric Tillman will participate in the 2016 Black Poetry Series at 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 16, at UNC Charlotte Center City.

Author of “The Fateful Apple,” Thrash was a finalist in the 2012 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize and the 2009 Arktoi Books Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in “The Beloit Poetry Journal,” “Arkansas Review” and “Beltway Quarterly,” among several others. She has read at the Split This Rock Poetry Conference, the Atlas Center for the Performing Arts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and at the Library of Congress. She is a Cave Canem fellow and teaches creative writing in Washington, D.C.

Tillman holds a bachelor’s degree in English from UNC Charlotte and graduated from American University’s MFA program in creative writing. He also is a graduate of the Cave Canem Workshop for African-American poets and a former Boston Review “Discovery” contest semifinalist. His poems have been published in “Kakalak,” “Rove,” “Apogee” and “Home Is Where: An Anthology of African American Poets from the Carolinas,” edited by Kwame Dawes. His debut collection “Lilies in the Valley” was a semifinalist for the 2011 42 Miles Press Poetry Award. He is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the inaugural winner of the Willow Books Emerging Poets and Writers Award.

The National Council of Black Studies conference and its host, the UNC Charlotte Department of Africana Studies, and the UNC Charlotte Department of English, Chancellor’s Diversity Challenge Fund, and UNC Charlotte Center City are co-sponsoring this event. A second Black Poetry Series event is being planned for April.