Thousands of poets from across the Americas have recited their works on the stage of the Guild Complex, Chicago's internationally renowned, cross-cultural literary center. The anthology "Powerlines: A Decade of Poetry from Chicago's Guild Complex," celebrates the first ten years of the award-winning literary center and its publishing wing, Tia Chucha Press, through the words of some of the poets who provided the artistic foundation upon which the organization was built. Every week at the Complex poets from every imaginable layer of society open themselves up to the audience. They lay their hearts and minds on the stage for strangers and friends to inspect. They pick apart the world around them. They extend themselves and search for answers and questions in a communal ritual called a poetry reading. Their words mix Dow-Jones averages with turned out blues, revolutionary chants with appeals for love, outrage at injustice with razor-sharp satire, a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo protesting racism and war, a child's cry against abuse, the meaning of a cicada's sleep, and joy in the sound of a B-flat note. In isolation, the millions of words that have been spoken at the Complex simply hang and then dissipate. But there is an accumulative meaning in the array of voices and ideas that have flowed from the stage. "Powerlines" makes sense of a decade of words.
Poets include Gwendolyn Brooks, Adrienne Rich, Quincy Troupe, Sandra Cisneros, Piri Thomas, Reginald Gibbons, Kimiko Hahn, Elizabeth Alexander, Ana Castillo, Angela Jackson, Haki Madhubut, Patricia Smith, David Hernandez, Michael Anania, Sterling Plumpp, Martha Vertreace, Jack Hirschman, Paul Hoover, Cin Salach, Diane Glancy, Richard Jones, Eugene Redmond, Rohan Preston, Afaa Weaver, Martin Espada, Wanda Coleman, Lisel Mueller, and many others.
Luis Rodriguez is the founder of Tia Chucha Press and the author of "Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A." His most recent book of poems is "Trochemoche" (Curbstone Press, 1998).
Michael Warr is the founding executive director of the Guild Complex. He is the author of the poetry collection "We Are All the Black Boy" (Tia Chucha, 1991) and a recipient of an NEA fellowship for poetry.
Julie Parson-Nesbitt is a founding member of the Guild Complex and a recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poet's Award. Her most recent book of poems is "Finders" (West End Press, 1996).
