Chicago’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, interdisciplinary artist avery r. young is also an award-winning teaching artist. As co-director of The Floating Museum, young’s work stretches to that programming and curation of the Chicago Architecture Biennial - Cab5, This is a Rehearsal [2023]. In the foreword of his most recent book neckbone: visual verses (Northwestern University Press), Theaster Gates called him “one of our greatest living street poets...one of the most important thinkers on the Black experience,” Black Grooves referred to his album tubman. (FPE Records) as “brilliant” and “supremely funky.” Young’s poems and essays have been published in Cecil McDonald's In The Company of Black, The BreakBeat Poets, and other anthologies. His album booker t. soltreyne: a race rekkid engages matters of race, gender, and sexuality in America during the Obama Era. Avery’s work in performance, visual text, and sound design has been featured in several exhibitions and theater festivals---notably The Hip Hop Theatre Festival, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Art, and American Jazz Museum. He is the featured vocalist on flutist Nicole Mitchell’s Mandorla Awakening (FPE Records). His theater credits include co-writing and co-producing the soundtrack for Lise Haller Baggeson’s Hatorgrade Retrograde: The Musical, scoring RedClay Dance’s Rest.Restore.Nourinsh.Move.Heal and writing the libretto for The Chicago Lyric Opera’s Twilight: Gods. Currently young is working on the libretto, compositions for his debut opera titled safronia and he is working on the score and script for his debut play maim de looter(s).
