Tara
Betts
After winning Guild Complex's 1999 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, Tara
published her collection of poems Can I Hang? She also represented Chicago as a
slam team member at the 1999 and 2000 National Poetry Slams. She has also
performed her work at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Womanmade Gallery, The
Metro, the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago Cultural Center and several
colleges, universities and Chicago public and alternative schools. She has
shared the stage with Patricia Smith, Rosellen Brown, Afaa
Michael Weaver, Kwame Dawes and Grammy-nominee Jill Scott. Tara also
co-hosts a monthly performance/open mic series Women OutLoud at Square One.
In addition to her experiences with page and the stage, Tara Betts teaches writing and encourages literacy by working with arts programs such as Young Chicago Authors and the internationally-acclaimed Gallery 37. Tara recently co-founded and co-teaches GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop for young women. She has also conducted short-term workshops in schools, community centers, City Girls (a substance rehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center. Tara is working on her first full-length poetry manuscript.
If you are interested in booking information or upcoming appearances, send correspondence to Tarabetts@aol.com or call 312-455-1733.
Arc
& Hue
Click to order via
Amazon
Perfect Paperback: 94 pages
Publisher: Aquarius Press; First edition (September 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 098192087X
ISBN-13: 978-0981920870
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
It's all here, all the nuances of body and voice, as bold and sensitive
poetic attitude. How flow became form then flow again, the
creative-growth-process of living writing line breath before line break, a risk
in every room. Tara Betts makes silence plea then whips some crazy and some
natural on the confessional. Often sassy, often black-a-demic, her
non-discriminating eye is never without a fully focused art-sense of self,
community and nation. So many of the poems in Arc and Hue aim for the spirit
level of insight, our need-some-more-saturation souls. No bragging, no cussin
folks out or refried allegorical posturing, Arc and Hue respects the currency of
creativity and the unbought lives it honors.
�Thomas Sayers Ellis, The Maverick Room
Tara Betts deftly crafted stanzas are infused with a relentless lyricism and a
Chi-town girl's sensibility. This debut collection solidifies her status as a
defiant and singular voice, joyous indication of a fresh new direction in
poetry.
�Patricia Smith, National Book Award Winner and author of Blood Dazzler
The poems in Tara Betts's debut collection, Arc and Hue, are a montage of
identity politics, sexuality, music, and experiential knowledge. The joy of
reading these poems is that it's the knowledge--yes, even more than the music--
that makes these poems sing. Irrespective of how familiar the scene may seem on
the surface, whether the focus is a reverie on relationships--some familial,
some romantic--or a projection of a subjunctive future, the acute attention to
detail and keen point of view guides Betts' work to conclusions that surprise
and illuminate.
�A. Van Jordan, author of Quantum Lyrics
Tara's work has appeared in the Steppenwolf Theater production Words on Fire, Obsidian III, Columbia Poetry Review, and the following anthologies:
These Hands I Know (Sarabande, 2002);
That Takes Ovaries! (Three Rivers Press/Crown, 2002);
ROLE CALL (Third World Press, February 2002);
Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Three Rivers Press/Crown, 2001);
Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry (Manic D Press,
2000), and
Power Lines: A Decade of Poetry from Chicagos Guild Complex (Tia Chucha
Press, 1999).
Related Links
Def Poetry Jam Story for AALBC.com
http://aalbc.com/authors/def_poetry_jam_story.htm
Killing the Black Body?: Race and the Reproductive Battleground
http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20001016.htm
Illinois Arts Tour http://www.state.il.us/agency/iac/Guidelines/Artstour01/Lit/guildcomplex2.htm
Illinois Writers' Directory
http://www.litline.org/IWD/html/betts.html
Women OutLoud
www.womenoutloud.com
Young Chicago Authors
http://www.youngchicagoauthors.org/content/teachers/
Mosaic Fall/Winter 1999
Celebrating our voices Ida B. Wells by Tara Betts.
www.aalbc.com/writers/download.htm
Mosaic Spring 1999
Poetry Loving You is Church by Tara Betts
www.aalbc.com/writers/spring_1999.htm
Gwen Brooks Blk Writers Conf.
... tyehimba jess, tara betts, dr. duriel harris (whom jess
affectionately called dr.
funk), plus a host of other young chicago poets were on the set in addition
www.aalbc.com/events/gwenbrookswritersconf.htm