Bring your blankets and chairs, snacks and drinks, and friends, and join us at the Solomon Juneau statue for this beloved summer reading series, now entering its ninth year. Poetry in the Park takes place in Juneau Park on the second Tuesday of June, July, August, and September, with rain dates scheduled on the second Wednesday of each month. This season’s events are made possible with support from Juneau Park Friends, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Village Church.
July's event features readings from Derrick Harriell, Sean Enfield, Tiffany Miller, and Melissa Mursch-Rodriguez.
Derrick Harriell is the Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi where he directs the African American Studies program. His previous collections of poems include Stripper in Wonderland, Come Kingdom, Cotton, and Ropes, winner of the 2014 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Book Award. His short story, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” was the recipient of the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award.
Sean Enfield is an essayist, poet, gardener, bassist, and educator from Dallas, TX. Currently, he resides in Milwaukee, WI where he is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Permafrost Magazine. Now, he serves as an Assistant Nonfiction Editor at Terrain.org. His debut collection of essays, Holy American Burnout!, is forthcoming from Split/Lip Press in December 2023. You can find his work at seanenfield.com.
Tiffany Miller Blooms is an interdisciplinary artist best known for her meditations on love, joy and blackness. From prose and poetry to textile art and installations, Tiffany has always used her creativity as a space for deep reflection and healing, both for herself and her community. Recently, she became a 2023 Anaphora Poetry Fellow, a writing residency for artists of color in Los Angeles. She also received the 2023 Black Excellence Award in Arts and the Milwaukee Business Journal's Diversity in Business Award for Creative Industry Leader.
When her mother AKA Honey Mama, Wanda Richards-Miller, transitioned in December 2019, Tiffany began a journey to "Find Joy in the Mourning." That journey led her on a road trip to explore her southern roots and a trip inward to explore her purpose path. Tiffany's newest book, To Be Seen, is grounded in a collection of persistent poems - divinely-inspired verses written in one sitting with no post-editing. Hence the collection's foreword "Transcribed by Tiffany, Written by The Universe and These Wild Ancestors of Mine." What started as musings about love in relation to others became a profound message about loving and trusting the self above all - especially through heartache and changing seasons and circumstances.
Tiffany is the author of Sol en Puerto Rico and Cover~Girl Revealed. She owns FlyBlooms, a joyful adornments boutique, and co-founded The Bronzeville Collective MKE, a storefront featuring black, brown and queer creatives. Tiffany lives out her purpose daily as a creative, coach and community collaborator in Milwaukee, WI. www.TiffBlooms.com
Melissa Mursch-Rodriguez is a Milwaukee-based creative whose practice exists between the realms of fiber arts, zinemaking, poetry, and curatorial programming. She finds herself at the intersections of identities as a mixed chicana queer woman, which she parses, prods, and praises through her work. She is the editor and founder of Moody, a bi monthly zine featuring work by queer and BIPOC creatives, and frequently curates exhibitions centering marginalized voices in hopes of creating community and connection.