Wednesday, February 17
7 PM

Open to the public with a $5 suggested donation

The Motor Signal Reading Series jolts poetry and prose reading out of its conventional form. Every event involves an activity of literary co-creation between performer and audience. Featured readers Siaara Freeman and Scheherazade Washington Parrish.

Siaara Freeman was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She's very proud of this even when others assume she'd feel otherwise. She began writing at 7 years old and actively slamming at 15 for the National Brave New Voices Competition until she was 19. She then entered the adult scene, slamming for both Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio. Siaara's poems offer an actual face to the urban experience instead of caricature. Siaara insists that you see the people she sees, the stories she knows, whether you find them respectable or not. She has travelled the country and she does not make fans, she makes friends. Publications include Chicago Literati (May 2015), For Harriet (July 2015), and 3Elementz Review (Oct 2015). 

Scheherazade Washington Parrish is a Detroit School writer, an educator and creative coach with a background in poetry. She is a 2015 Spread Art fellow, and is currently working on Stretch Marks: A Mother’s Taboo, a collection of poetry, essays and monologues which narrate post-partum experiences, interrogating and deconstructing societal concepts of maternal love and duty.

Presented in partnership with Literary Detroit and Knight Arts Challenge.