Back to top

Join the Human Rights Lab for the second event in our two-part series, “Prison, Poetry, and the Pandemic: Speculating Joy and Futures,” with poet and editor Tara Betts. This virtual workshop will ask participants to imagine the freedom we want in the world, through close readings of poems and writing activities led by Tara.


Register for the Zoom link

Tara would like to pass along a few pieces that she recommends reading in preparation for the workshop. These are suggested readings but not required. View and download them


Tara Betts is the author of two poetry collections, Break the Habit, Arc & Hue, and the forthcoming Refuse to Disappear. She also coedited The Beiging of America and edited a critical edition of Philippa Duke Schuyler's Adventures in Black and White. Her sci-fi-related writing has appeared in Cicada, Near Kin: A Collection of Words and Art Inspired by Octavia Estelle Butler, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, and the Hugo-nominated Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler. Her work has also appeared in The Breakbeat Poets, The Long Term, Essence magazine, Poetry magazine, and many other publications. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she's taught a weekly poetry workshop at Stateville Prison and has also taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago. In 2019, Tara published a poem celebrating Illinois' bicentennial with Candor Arts. Tara is Poetry Editor at Another Chicago Magazine and The Langston Hughes Review and the Lit Editor at Newcity

Co-presented the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, the Mass Incarceration Working Group, and UChicago Creative Writing.