September 17, 2019
For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Wanda Harden, Community Engagement and Community Relations Coordinator
Flint Public Library, 810.249-2044
Semaj Brown: [email protected]
Flint Public Library presents poet Semaj Brown: Bleeding Fire!
The Flint Public Library presents Poetry After Hours with author, poet and performance artist Semaj Brown, Friday, September 27, 6pm, FREE. She will perform pieces from her new release Bleeding Fire! Tap the Eternal Spring of Regenerative Light. She will be accompanied by her husband, Dr. James Brown on the Arborlune.
Bleeding Fire! is an odyssey into African American history and culture. It is a conversation in poetry and prose – part memoir, part social commentary, part magical realism expressed by literary artist Semaj Brown. Listeners will grapple with the intensity of our collective reality while commemorating love and laughter.
Brown a Poet. She is a science-driven writer, dramatist and educator. Her early education was in Detroit where she excelled as a violinist. Summers were spent studying Shakespeare in Stratford. She was a dutiful student of the legacy poets of Detroit’s Broadside Press, dissecting literature with her mother, the late Mrs. Bessie L. James, a classically trained pianist, who taught a socio- political appreciation for world cultures through a Pan-African lens. Brown has a BA from Wayne State in the Biological Sciences.
Bleeding Fire is not only a compelling literary work, and an instrument for community and academic exploration, but it also presents as a multi-media production. The Bleeding Fire production debuted at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History—Detroit, May 2019 to coincide with the release.
Brown is also known for her piece, Mother Ocean: The Making of a New Tribe, an epic poem inspired by the photographic installation of Jerry Taliaferro, Flint Institute of Arts, (FIA), 2017 and her book Feasts and Fables of the Planted Kingdom: A Story Cookbook and lyrical CD, which is the foundational material for her original play: Onion Revolt, the One-Woman Healthy Comedy.
She is cofounder along with her Family Physician husband, James Brown MD of the Planted Kingdom™ Project and Health Collectors™ LLC which promotes wellness in the community through science/art programming.
The Flint Public Library is located at 1026 E. Kearsley Street, Flint, MI 48503. For more information call 810.232-7111 or visit www.fpl.info