Chaun Ballard and Tara Ballard: Poetry Reading and Conversation.

Chaun Ballard is author of the chapbook, Flight, which won the 2018 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize and is published by Tupelo Press. His poems have appeared in Narrative Magazine, New York Quarterly, The New York Times, Poetry Northwest, and other literary magazines. Chaun is an assistant poetry editor for Terrain.org and a member of AQR’s affiliate editorial team.  Of Chaun’s poetry Hanif Abduraqqib writes: “Chaun Ballard’s Flight finds innovative and brilliant pathways to step into the layered and complex voices surrounding the joys and perils of being black in America. These poems are daring and musical, as alive as the people they are speaking to.”

Tara Ballard is author of House of the Night Watch (New Rivers Press), winner of the 2016 Many Voices Project prize in poetry. Her work has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. Tara is an assistant poetry editor for Prairie Schooner and a member of AQR’s affiliate editorial team. Of Tara’s poetry Tarfia Faizullah writes: “With lyrical deftness, imagistic texture, a willingness to cross and consider borders, and perhaps most importantly, a self-awareness in that crossing, Tara Ballard reminds us to not take our own sight, and its capacity, for granted. With the aid of poets such as Yehuda Amichai and Naomi Shihab Nye, and others, Ballard reminds us that poetry allows us to speak with those who are both near and far.”