FRIEDA began to present spoken word events six years ago. We had the space, a microphone, and a vital supportive community…all of which we offered to writers.
Carrying on an ancient tradition of oral poetry reading, spoken word combines performance, word play, and inflection. The interaction between artist and audience is an important part of the creative process and is one which FRIEDAcommunity continues to nurture.
The son of exiles from Cuba and Poland, Chris Campanioni is a writer, multimedia artist, and instructor. He is a recipient of the International Latino Book Award for his debut novel, Going Down, the Pushcart Prize for “Soft Opening,” from his cross-genre collection Death of Art, and the 2013 Academy of American Poets College Prize. His work on regimes of surveillance, queer migration, and the auto-archival practices of people moving across transnational spaces has been awarded the Calder Prize for interdisciplinary work and a Mellon Foundation fellowship. His essays, poetry, and fiction have been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, and have found a home in several venues, including Best American Essays (HarperCollins, 2022), Denver Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, Social Text, Latin American Literature Today, American Poetry Review, Fence, and BOMB. His translations have been published in Beginnings of the Prose Poem: All Over the Place (Commonwealth Books, 2021), his multimedia work has been exhibited at the New York Academy of Art, and the film adaptation of his poem “This body’s long (& I’m still loading)” was in the official selection at the Canadian International Film Festival.
Davon Loeb is the author of the memoir, The In-Betweens, a Lyrical Memoir, (West Virginia University Press) and is an assistant features editor at The Rumpus. He earned an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University-Camden and has had work published in The Sun Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, TODAY, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Catapult Magazine, Ploughshares, the Best American Essays Anthology 2022, and elsewhere. Davon is a husband, father, and teacher located in New Jersey. Click here to learn more
Leah Souffrant is a writer and artist committed to interdisciplinary practice. She is the author of Entanglements: Threads woven from history, memory, and the body (Unbound Edition Press 2023) and Plain Burned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable (Collection Clinamen, PULG Liège 2017). Souffrant is a co-creator, with Abby Paige, of the LeAB Iteration Lab for experimental performance. She teaches writing at New York University and keeps a studio in Brooklyn where she writes and creates visual art.
Date: Saturday, December 9
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Location: FRIEDA, 320 Walnut Street
Registration: Space is limited. Reservation only. At least 2 days prior to the event.
Fee: Open to the general public. Admission free.
FRIEDA offers a wide range of beverages, cold and hot, as well as a variety of freshly made food options. Please be respectful, no outside food or drinks allowed.
Mask recommended during this event.
Sign Up: Please sign up via email
This event is made possible thanks to donations from our annual fundraiser.
