We are proud to present Nikky Finney, who will read from her work commissioned for the Poetry Center's Art for Justice grant. After the reading, there will be a short Q&A and a book signing.
The University of Arizona Poetry Center’s Art for Justice grant funds a three-year project that will commission new work from leading writers in conversation with the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States, with the goal of creating new awareness and empathy through presentation and publication. In particular, through the work of leading poets, the project will seek to confront racial inequities within the criminal justice system to promote social justice and change. Learn more about the project
Our opener for this Art for Justice event is Dr. Grace Gámez on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee.
Nikky Finney was born by the sea in South Carolina and raised during the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Arts Movements. She began reading and writing poetry as a teenager growing up in the spectacle and human theatre of the deep South. At Talladega College, she began to autodidactically explore the great intersections between art, history, politics, and culture. These same arenas of exploration are ongoing today in her writing, teaching and spirited belief in one-on-one activism. She is the author of four books of poetry, On Wings Made of Gauze, RICE, The World Is Round, and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. She has written extensively for journals, magazines, and other publications. For twenty-one years she taught creative writing at the University of Kentucky and now holds the John WITH. Bennett, Jr., Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She travels extensively, never lecturing, always inviting and hoping for conversations that just might improve the human condition.
Dr. Grace Gámez is a Program Coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee- Arizona where she leads the ReFraming Justice Project. Reframing Justice is considered the premier platform in Arizona for directly impacted people to influence criminal legal policy, legislation, and the social narrative around justice and accountability. Through leadership workshops, multimedia storytelling, coalition building, and community outreach- Dr. Gámez cultivates and invests in the leadership capacity of directly impacted people.
Dr. Gámez is a mother, published author, public speaker, organizer, and freedom dreamer. Dr. Gámez was a 2018 Lead with Conviction Fellow with JustLeadershipUSA and holds a Ph.D. in Justice Studies from Arizona State University.