The evening’s organizers, Andrea Perez (left), Katie Dover-Taylor  (center), and Rachel Thompson (right).

Saturday, March 28th was an evening of hard-hitting and hilarious performances by some of Detroit’s most dynamic spoken-word performers–all in the name of raising funds for the Radical Librarianship track of the upcoming 2015 Allied Media Conference.

Held every summer in Detroit, the Allied Media Conference is “a collaborative laboratory of media-based organizing strategies for transforming our world.” This year, AMC will take place June 18-21 and bring together a vibrant and diverse community of people who are using media to incite change: filmmakers, radio producers, technologists, youth organizers, writers, entrepreneurs, musicians, dancers and artists. AMC features more than 250 hands-on workshops, panels, film screenings, Detroit tours, art and music events, strategy sessions, karaoke, bowling, collaborative art and more. The Radical Librarianship track will be a series of sessions at AMC that explores radical work being done both inside and outside traditional library settings.

“One of the ideal functions of a library is to purchase access to knowledge (and the tools to create new knowledge) in bulk, and distribute that access so that everyone can make use of it,” says organizer Katie Dover-Taylor. “In a society that all too often overlooks the impact of structural inequality, that devalues the stories and dehumanizes people of color, queer and trans folks, where poverty is regularly mislabeled as personal failure – sharing resources, providing equal access to information and technology, and allowing everyone the opportunity to engage with media as creators and producers, rather than consumers – remain radical ideas.”

The evening’s host, Jen Bloomer.

The evening of “radical readings” and delicious Two Dollar Tacos raised funding for the AMC. It was hosted by Jen Bloomer and featured readings or performances by Benjamin Alfaro, Rosie Sharp (your devoted Knight Arts blogger), Kathy Leisen, Tawana “Honeycomb” Petty, 2013 Kresge Fellow Chace “Mic Write” Morris, and last year’s inaugural Write-A-House recipient Casey Rocheteau.

After a powerful opening set by Alfaro, the mood lightened up through my set and that of comedian Kathy Leisen, who sent the audience to intermission in smiles. After the break, the audience took in a moving and powerful series of works 1-2-3 punched by Petty, Morris and Rocheteau. With this as a warm-up, we can only look forward to seeing what the 2015 AMC will have in store.

Kresge Fellow Chace Morris offered a sneak preview of his upcoming Art X performance.

You don’t have to wait until then to hear more from these great poets, however. Tawana Petty will be performing this Friday, April 10, at the “Take Back the Night Detroit” program at Marygrove College. On April 18, Chace Morris will be featured during Art X 2015 in a performance called “You’re Coming with Me” at the Garden Bowl Theater. And you can keep tabs on Casey Rocheteau over at the Write-A-House blog, where she most recently posted an essay on Art and Narratives of Blight.