A debut collection of lyric poems interrogating the generational implications of the Great Migration to Northern California.

Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water, a debut collection by E. Hughes, marries personal narrative with historical excavation to articulate the intricacies of Black familial love, life, and pain. Tracing the experiences of a southern Black family, their migration to the San Francisco Bay area, and the persistent anti-Blackness there (despite the state’s insistence that it is/was not involved in the US’ projects of imperialism or chattel slavery), Hughes illuminates the intersections of history, grief, and violence.

Get Ankle-Deep In Pacific Water from Haymarket: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2450-ankle-deep-in-pacific-water

**We ask that all in-person attendees wear masks in the event space during the program for the health and well-being of the speakers and other guests. We will have a reception afterwards with light refreshments and books available for purchase.***

Speakers:

E. Hughes’ poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Poet Lore, Indiana Review, and Gulf Coast Magazine—among others. They are a Cave Canem fellow and have been a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2021 Granum Fellowship Prize, and a semifinalist of the 2022 and 2023 92Y Discovery Contest. In 2021, they received their MFA+MA from the Litowitz Creative Writing Program at Northwestern University. Currently, Hughes is a PhD student in Philosophy at Emory University studying black aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism.

Kemi Alabi is the author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award. The collection was a Kate Tufts Discovery Award finalist, Chicago Review of Books Award winner, and one of New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022, among other honors. Alabi’s poems appear widely in journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic, The Nation, Poetry, Boston Review, and Best New Poets. They’ve been awarded fellowships from MacDowell, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Germany’s Akademie der Künste, Italy’s Civitella Ranieri, and elsewhere. Alabi has over ten years of experience building narrative power with organizers and is co-editor of The Echoing Ida Collection (Feminist Press, 2021), an anthology of reproductive justice writing. Born in Wisconsin on a Sunday in July, they now live in Chicago, IL.

Ed Roberson is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Asked What Has Changed (2021); MPH + Selected Motorcycle Poems (2021); the chapbook Closest Pronunciation (2013); To See the Earth Before the End of the World (2010), which was a runner up for the Los Angeles Times Poetry Award; The New Wing of the Labyrinth (2009); City Eclogue (2006); Atmosphere Conditions (1999), which was chosen by Nathaniel Mackey for the National Poetry Series and was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Just In: Word of Navigational Change: New and Selected Work (1998); and Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In (1995), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize. His earlier collections include Etai-Eken (1975) and When Thy King is a Boy (1970). Roberson’s honors include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2016, the Lila Wallace Writers’ Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Award, and the 2016 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. His work has been included in Best American Poetry. He lives in Chicago, where he has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and Northwestern University.