Details:
This event takes place in person at Charis and on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. Register at the link below to attend virtually. Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of this page to be sure you can participate in the event. Charis welcomes Taylor Byas in conversation with Courtney Faye Taylor for a discussion of Resting Bitch Face, a poetry collection that transforms the Black female speaker from object, artistic muse, and victim to subject, critic, and master of her story. Taylor Byas uses some of our most common ways of “watching” throughout history (painting, films, sculpture, and photographs) to explore how these mediums shape Black female subjectivity. From the examination of artwork by Picasso, Gauguin, Sally Mann, and Nan Goldin, Byas displays her mastery of the poetic form by engaging in intimate and inventive writing. Fluctuating between watcher and watched, the speaker of these poems uses mirrors and reflections to flip the script and talk back to histories of art, text, photography, relationships, and men. From Polaroids to gesso primer to sculpture, Byas creates a world in which the artist calls out and the muse responds. For not only does she enter the world of the long-revered classic artist, but she also infuses her poems with such iconic pop culture works as The Joker, WandaVision, and Last Tango in Paris. Resting Bitch Face is a book for women, for Black women, for lovers of art and film criticism, and for writers interested in work that finds a middle ground between poetry and prose. About the Author Taylor Byas is an award-winning poet and a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her poetry collection I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times won the Maya Angelou Book Award, the Ohioana Book Award, the CHIRBy Award, and the BCALA Best Poetry Honor. About the Conversation Partner Courtney Faye Taylor is the author of Concentrate (Graywolf Press, 2022), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the T.S. Eliot Four Quartets Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and other honors. Her writing and visual art can be found in Poetry, The Nation, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art online and elsewhere. Recipient of a 2024 MacDowell Fellowship in fiction and the 92Y Discovery Prize, Courtney lives in Atlanta, GA where she is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Agnes Scott College. The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event. Charis Books is a fully wheelchair accessible space with on site van accessible parking, two ramps, and additional overflow accessible parking nearby. Additional accessibility information can be found on the Accessibility page of our website. In-person event guidelines: - All attendees must wear a face mask during the event. - We will begin seating people at 7:00 PM ET. - This event will be live-streamed via Crowdcast. Register at the link below. - As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event. If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact info@charisbooksandmore.com or call the store at 404-524-0304. Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions at If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org. By attending our event, whether in person or virtually, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email info@chariscircle.org.
