This event will take place at Mechanics' Hall: 519 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101
To register for this event: please click here.
Join us for an evening of poetry and the debut of Maya Williams poetry collection Judas & Suicide. Maya will be joined by Ian-Khara Ellasant, Katya Zinn, & Catherine Weiss.
This program is presented in collboration with Maine Writers & Publishers Allliance & Print: A Bookstore.
Program support provided by: The Onion Foundation
Suicide is often framed as betrayal, even though we live in a world that betrays us. When this world tells us that death is better, what does it mean to have faith in life? Judas & Suicide is a poetry collection navigating religion and suicidality. It approaches these topics through the lens of Black family and community, sadness, medication, sexual violence, the prison industrial complex, media, and Bible verses. Judas & Suicide explores how to be convinced to stay alive without feeling obligated to.
Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who is currently the seventh poet laureate of Portland, Maine. Her debut collection Judas & Suicide will be released by Game Over Books in May 2023. They were one of three artists of color selected to represent Maine in The Kennedy Center's Arts Across America series in 2020 and were listed as one of The Advocate's Champions of Pride in 2022. You can follow more of eir work at mayawilliamspoet.com
