February 15, 2022 • SPEAKER SERIES • A Letter to John A. Williams
Please join us for this 2022 Virtual Speaker Series event on Tuesday, February 15. The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation will host Dr. Brian G. Gilmore for a talk about his time in Michigan and the Midwest as part of our Place and Landscape series. Framed in part around John A. Williams’ book, This Is My Country Too (1965) – in which Williams documents his thoughts and experiences during a car trip across America – Gilmore will explore ideas of place, identity, and community, interrogating what brings us together, what connects us, and how we might better connect with one another.
About Brian G. Gilmore
Brian G. Gilmore is a Senior Lecturer in the Law and Society Program (MLAW) at University of Maryland, a public interest lawyer, a native of Washington DC, and a poet. He has authored four books, including one 2020 Michigan Notable Book Recipient, come see about me, marvin (Wayne State University Press).
WSU Press writes “come see about me, marvin is accessible, honest poetry about and for real people. In the collection, Brian G. Gilmore seeks to invite the reader into a fantastical dialogue between himself and Marvin Gaye—two black men who were born in the nation’s capital, but who moved to the Midwest for professional ambitions. In trying to acclimate himself to a new job in a new place—a place that seemed so different from the home he had always known—Gilmore often looked to Marvin Gaye as an example for how to be. These poems were derived as a means of coping in a strange land.”
Another poetry collection by Gilmore, We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters, was nominated for the 2014 NAACP Image Award. A Cave Canem Fellow and Kimbilio Fellow, he is also a regular contributor to The Progressive Magazine. For more, check out his blog at Medium.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
Please join us for this 2022 Virtual Speaker Series event on Tuesday, February 15. The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation will host Dr. Brian G. Gilmore for a talk about his time in Michigan and the Midwest as part of our Place and Landscape series. Framed in part around John A. Williams’ book, This Is My Country Too (1965) – in which Williams documents his thoughts and experiences during a car trip across America – Gilmore will explore ideas of place, identity, and community, interrogating what brings us together, what connects us, and how we might better connect with one another.
About Brian G. Gilmore
Brian G. Gilmore is a Senior Lecturer in the Law and Society Program (MLAW) at University of Maryland, a public interest lawyer, a native of Washington DC, and a poet. He has authored four books, including one 2020 Michigan Notable Book Recipient, come see about me, marvin (Wayne State University Press).
WSU Press writes “come see about me, marvin is accessible, honest poetry about and for real people. In the collection, Brian G. Gilmore seeks to invite the reader into a fantastical dialogue between himself and Marvin Gaye—two black men who were born in the nation’s capital, but who moved to the Midwest for professional ambitions. In trying to acclimate himself to a new job in a new place—a place that seemed so different from the home he had always known—Gilmore often looked to Marvin Gaye as an example for how to be. These poems were derived as a means of coping in a strange land.”
Another poetry collection by Gilmore, We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters, was nominated for the 2014 NAACP Image Award. A Cave Canem Fellow and Kimbilio Fellow, he is also a regular contributor to The Progressive Magazine. For more, check out his blog at Medium.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
Please join us for this 2022 Virtual Speaker Series event on Tuesday, February 15. The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation will host Dr. Brian G. Gilmore for a talk about his time in Michigan and the Midwest as part of our Place and Landscape series. Framed in part around John A. Williams’ book, This Is My Country Too (1965) – in which Williams documents his thoughts and experiences during a car trip across America – Gilmore will explore ideas of place, identity, and community, interrogating what brings us together, what connects us, and how we might better connect with one another.
About Brian G. Gilmore
Brian G. Gilmore is a Senior Lecturer in the Law and Society Program (MLAW) at University of Maryland, a public interest lawyer, a native of Washington DC, and a poet. He has authored four books, including one 2020 Michigan Notable Book Recipient, come see about me, marvin (Wayne State University Press).
WSU Press writes “come see about me, marvin is accessible, honest poetry about and for real people. In the collection, Brian G. Gilmore seeks to invite the reader into a fantastical dialogue between himself and Marvin Gaye—two black men who were born in the nation’s capital, but who moved to the Midwest for professional ambitions. In trying to acclimate himself to a new job in a new place—a place that seemed so different from the home he had always known—Gilmore often looked to Marvin Gaye as an example for how to be. These poems were derived as a means of coping in a strange land.”
Another poetry collection by Gilmore, We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters, was nominated for the 2014 NAACP Image Award. A Cave Canem Fellow and Kimbilio Fellow, he is also a regular contributor to The Progressive Magazine. For more, check out his blog at Medium.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
