transtrender

Ebo Barton, Anisa Jackson, Reverend Dollars, Yani Robinson, and manuel arturo abreu
INCA: 2 West Roy St. Seattle, WA, 98110
24 March 2017, 7-9pm
Curated by manuel arturo abreu
_________________________________

 

Launch of manuel arturo abreu’s second book, transtrender. For the book launch abreu has curated other trans/nonbinary/gender-nonconforming artists of color, all Seattle-based: Ebo Barton, Anisa Jackson, Reverend Dollars, and Yani Robinson.

Published by Quimérica Books in Dec 2016, transtrender is a book of lyric poems investigating the impossibility of language to express the bodily and social experience of transness. Written from an afrolatinx trans position, the work deals with the trap of visibility, the coloniality of gender, and the refusal of cogency in a moment where trans is trending (that is, being commodified and whitewashed).

abreu manically darts from image to image in their poems, working in a digitally-influenced poetic register which, as Brian Droitcour describes, “looks like flarf but isn’t.” The result is a text that resists opportunities for the reader to connect the dots, instead pushing toward an expanded lyric awareness in which poiesis does not betray its site-specificity, and gender nonconformity is not confined to a false narrative of emergence from white modernity.
______________________________

Ebo Barton is a Black and Filipino queer poet and artist living in Seattle, WA. They are the 2007 Bainbridge Island Poetry Slam Champion and a five-time finalist of the Seattle Poetry Slam Grand Slam. Barton has taught Creative Writing and Performance Poetry at Bent: A Queer Writing Institute, and has been featured on National Public Radio, SeattleGayScene.com, Button Poetry, EverydayFeminism.com and King 5 (Seattle) News. Their work has been showcased in Adrienne: A Poetry Journal of Queer Women by Sibling Rivalry Press. They are the founder of the Rain City Poetry Slam and adapted the concept of Vancouver’s “Mashed Poetics” to create a similar monthly music-inspired poetry show, Liner Notes. Barton’s most recent project is a show titled, “How to love THIS Queer Body of Color: An Unapology,” Poetry and spoken word addressing “the strength and resiliency it takes to live in the body of a Queer Person of Color.” which debuted October 2015 in partnership with Gay City Arts.

Anisa Jackson (b. 1995) is an artist and writer based in Seattle. With a background in geography, Anisa’s research-based practice draws on care ethics and black feminist thought. Their work has appeared as installation, moving image, and as print and digital text. Their collection of essays and maps, published by Cold Cube Press, is forthcoming in 2017.

REVEREND DOLLARS is a Seattle-based DJ and producer who is the founder and co-organizer of the DARQNESS queer and trans people of color arts collective and the organizer of SOUL-FI. Their work focuses on bringing together marginalized Black, Trans, Queer, and People of Color communities through the mediums of music and dance. A lifelong dancer, her sets focus on energetic club and hiphop beats played at a frenetic pace. After a series of EPs dating back to 2011, she is currently working on her debut album as a producer.

Yani Robinson is a trans writer and Baltimore transplant currently studying creative writing at UW. Their/His first language is Thai, his mother is a Thai immigrant, and he identifies much like a kathoey – living his gender through performance. He works as a community organizer for Gender Justice League, a trans rights organization, and Lion’s Main Art Collective, a queer and trans art collective. They thought they wanted to be president, but now just want to teach middle school.

manuel arturo abreu (b. 1991, Santo Domingo) is a poet and artist from the Bronx. Currently living and working in a garage in southeast Portland, they received their BA in Linguistics from Reed College in 2014. They have recently shown work in AA|LA, As It Stands (LA), INCA (Seattle), King Street Station (Seattle), Rhizome, Open Space, et al. They wrote List of Consonants (Bottlecap Press, 2015) and transtrender (Quimérica Books).They co-facilitate home school, a free pop-up art school in Portland supported by a Precipice Fund grant and a RACC project grant.