The May Brookline Poetry Series features A Van Jordan, with the opener Maya Phillips.

Van Jordan is the author of four collections: Rise, which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award (Tia Chucha Press, 2001); M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A (2005), which was listed as one of the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times; Quantum Lyrics (2007); and The Cineaste (W.W. Norton & Co., 2013). Jordan has been awarded a Whiting Writers Award, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize. He is also a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), a United States Artists Fellowship (2009), and a Lannan Literary Award in Poetry (2015). He has taught at a number of institutions, including Rutgers University-Newark, where he served as the Henry Rutgers Presidential Professor, and the University of Michigan, where he currently serves as the Robert Hayden Collegiate Professor of English Language & Literature.

Maya Phillips was born and raised in New York. Maya received her BFA in writing, literature, and publishing with a concentration in poetry from Emerson College and her MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers. A former curator of the Emerson Poetry Project, Maya represented Emerson College at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational as a member of the college’s 2010 and 2011 slam teams, and also represented the Cantab Lounge at the National Poetry Slam as a member of the 2011 Cantab slam team. Her work has appeared in FreezeRay and Anomaly (formerly Drunken Boat). She currently works as the associate content producer at the Academy of American Poets and as a freelance writer for The New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn.

The Brookline Poetry Series meets once a month on Sunday afternoons, September through May, normally in Hunneman Hall at the Brookline Village Library (361 Washington St., Brookline, MA 02445). Usually, one or two established poets read, followed by an open mike. You may contact the organizers via email at brooklinepoetry@minlib.net. Please put “Brookline Poetry Series” in the subject heading. Please do not send written correspondence in care of the Library.

Timing of performances:

• 1:30 PM • Doors open
• 1:45 PM • Open mic sign-up
• 2 – 4 PM • Poetry readings