I began this 100-word prose poem on a sticky note. I revised it, used it in a Nearby Universe email invitation, and revised it again before sending it out. Then I practiced it to read at the Spring Reading, planning a palm-to-podium for the boom boom boom. Yesterday, A Story in 100 Words got back to me with a yes. Check it out here.
Creation and empathy are intertwined, two branches on the same tree. Poets and artists have always been at the forefront of movements for justice and social change. Now more than ever, creatives are speaking up and speaking out. As the organizer and MC of the Pikes Peak State College Spring Student/Faculty/Nearby Universe Reading and Visiting Writers’ Series Event, I am honored to amplify their voices.
The Creative Writing Program and Latino Alliance are thrilled to welcome Colorado Poet Laureate Emeritus Bobby LeFebre on Thursday, March 20, at the Downtown Campus’s Studio West, 22 North Sierra Madre St. in Colorado Springs, for a multicultural night of poetry and prose.
The evening begins with a Know Your Rights and Advocacy Workshop and reception courtesy of Student Experience and Equity from 5-6 pm, followed by the Student/Faculty/Nearby Universe Reading and open mic from 6-7 pm. Finally, from 7-8 pm, Bobby LeFebre takes the stage!
LeFebre is an award-winning writer, performer, and cultural worker fusing a non-traditional multi-hyphenated professional identity to imagine new realities, empower communities, advance arts and culture, and serve as an agent of provocation, transformation, equity, and social change. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Guardian, American Theater Magazine, and NPR. He has performed at hundreds of cultural events, social actions, detention centers, conferences, and colleges and universities across the United States and abroad.LeFebre co-founded the award-winning nonprofit organization Café Cultura and was named Colorado’s 8th Poet Laureate, making him the youngest and first person of color to be appointed to the prestigious position in the program’s 100-year history.
Multilingual poets and writers welcome! Students and faculty can email Brook.Bhagat@PikesPeak.edu to get on the schedule to read their work (1-3 min. each). PPSC welcomes all members of the community–please contact the English Department for accommodations.
I was honored to read and talk with two fantastic authors last night on Literary Nights, a reading series from Unsolicited Press hosted by Rosalia Scalia, author of Under the Radar. Raki Kopernik read from No One’s Leaving, her piercingly tender and true new novel just released yesterday. I read “Once Upon a Time I Died” from Only Flying as well as previously unreleased work from both of my collections forthcoming from Unsolicited Press: Exodus with Red Delicious, due in 2026, and I Drink From an Ear: Real Ghazals, to be released in 2027. What an awesome night! Thank you, Rosalia, Raki, and Unsolicited Press!
Brook Bhagat 