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 tenth year. Poetry in the Park takes place in Juneau Park on the second Tuesday of the summer months (with rain dates on the second Wednesday of the month). This season of outdoor readings are made possible with support from Juneau Park Friends and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Poetry in the Park featuring readings from Siwar Masannat, Soham Patel, R. B. Simon, and Ty Newcomb
Siwar Masannat is a Jordanian writer. The author of cue: poems (Georgia Review Books/UGA Press, 2024) and 50 Water Dreams (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2015), Masannat is the managing editor of the African Poetry Book Fund and Prairie Schooner. Masannat holds a Ph.D. in English from UW–Milwaukee.
Soham Patel is the author of the poetry collections to afar from afar (The Accomplices, 2018), ever really hear it (Subito, 2018 [winner of the 2017 Subito Prize, chosen by Mathias Svalina]), and all one in the end—water (Delete, 2023) and the chapbooks and nevermind the storm, New Weather Drafts (Portable Press @Yo-Yo Labs), in airplane and other poems (Oxeye Press), and Riva: A Chapter (Kitchen-Shy Press). Recent poetry has appeared in Interim, Under-belly, and Prairie Schooner.
R. B. Simon (she/her) is a queer, black, disabled writer who has been published in multiple journals, among them Emerge Literary Journal, pacificREVIEW, the Poetry Coop, Strange Horizons, Literary Mama, CALYX, and Obsidian. Her chapbook, The Good Truth, was released in July 2021 from Finishing Line Press, and her full-length collection, Not Just the Fire, was published in March 2023 from Cornerstone Press. Her third book, Bird, Bone, Blood, will be out in early 2025 from Milk & Cake Press. R. B. is currently a Senior Poetry Editor for Harbor Review, and lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her spouse and toddler daughter.
Ty Newcomb is a Ph.D. student at UWM finishing his third year. Ty is originally from the gulf coast of Louisiana where he first fell in love with fish, bugs, birds, and all sorts of non-human animal life. He mostly writes about these critters and the ever-vanishing natural world around them. Ty's work has been seen in Denver Quarterly, Stonecoast, Marathon, Into the Void, saltfront, and is upcoming in Artful Dodge.