11/17: A Reading & Conversation with Amber Flame and Quenton Baker

at Open Books

7 p.m.

Join us as we welcome poets Amber Flame (apocrifa, Red Hen Press) and Quenton Baker (Ballast, Haymarket Press) for the culmination of the apocrifa book tour. Amber and Quenton will be in conversation about Black love, writing canon into the future we wish to create, and balancing joy in a world built to enrage, harm & kill us. They'll be reading from their books and offering a Q&A as well.

about the book

apocrifa imagines a love that sits comfortably at the crossroads of commitment and freedom. The developing intimacy between a lover and their beloved is propelled by a compendium of words for love, romance, sex, relationships, and affection that do not lend to direct translation in English. Serving as both titles and markers of the progression of time, these poetically defined words highlight the growing tension of one who claims "i cannot love you enough/to unlove the wide world" and yet is inextricably drawn to the offer of "a place of sustenance, rest, and my delight in your very bones." Heavily inspired by the metaphors and structures of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon), from the Apocryphal books of the Bible, the characters speak to each other with contrapuntal call-and-response while letting us into their private thoughts through epistles, sestinas, odes, and other poetic forms.

Please note: Masks are required at this time for all events. Thank you for your understanding.