The Open Mouth Reading Series invites poetry lovers and the U of A community members to attend a virtual workshop and reading on April 10. The events will feature award-winning poet J. Bailey Hutchinson, U of A alum and former assistant director of Open Mouth Literary Center. These events are free and open to the public.

Hutchinson is from Memphis, Tennessee. She earned her M.F.A. from the U of A, where she served as assistant director of the Open Mouth Literary Center. Her first collection, Gut: Poems, published by the U of A Press, was selected by Patricia Smith as the winner of the 2022 Miller Williams Poetry Prize. She is an associate editor at Milkweed Editions, and her work can be found in Muzzle Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal and Ninth Letter, among other publications. She lives in Minneapolis.

Hutchinson will lead a generative workshop titled DON'T YUCK MY YUM, or, Can I Write a Poem about That? at 2 p.m. and feature during a 7 p.m. reading on April 10. A round of introductory readings from the U of A's M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing and Translation and the Open Mouth community will precede her feature. Each poet will read one poem. Opening readers will include MFA faculty Geffrey Davis, M.F.A. alumni David Brunson and Peter Mason; current M.F.A. students Hiba Tahir, Jami Padgett and Cal Paule; and Open Mouth community members Ivana Aponte (translated by David Brunson), Michelle Zamanian, Aeon Ginsberg, Ashley Roach-Frieman and Marlin M. Jenkins.  

Both events are free and open to the public. They will take place virtually via Zoom with Zoom auto captions, and an ASL interpreter will be present. Access copies of poems and workshop materials will be made available to attendees via Google Docs.

If you have additional access needs or requests, please reach out to the Open Mouth team at openmouthreadings@gmail.com.

A Workshop with J. Bailey Hutchinson: DON'T YUCK MY YUM, or, Can I Write a Poem about That?

• April 10 at 2 p.m.
• Register

A Reading with J. Bailey Hutchinson

• April 10 at 7 p.m.
• Register

About the Open Mouth Reading Series: The Open Mouth Reading Series is a community-based poetry series located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, founded by poets M.D. Myers and Molly Bess Rector in October of 2015. A federal 501(c)(3) non-profit, Open Mouth works to enrich the Northwest Arkansas community through close contact with poetry and with poets from the larger literary world. Open Mouth hosts readings, workshops, a summer poetry retreat and an annual fall poetry festival. For more information about Open Mouth or to donate, visit openmouthliterary.org and sign up for the Open Mouth newsletter.

Support for Open Mouth Literary Center is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from our supporters on Patreon, Mid-America Arts Alliance and the ARt Connect Program. The ARt Connect program is generously supported by the Walmart Foundation and implemented by Mid-America Arts Alliance in partnership with the Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) of the Northwest Arkansas Council. Additional support for Mid-America Arts Alliance is from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.