Saturday, January 22 from 6-8pm, the Racine Public Library will once again host "BONK!", the free monthly performance series that has quickly become an established entertainment event in downtown Racine. Now being held at the Racine Arts Council 316 Sixth St., the series was created to expose the public to both local and nationally recognized artistic talents. Each event showcases poets, writers, musicians, film makers and other talented artists. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with seating available on a first come/first served basis. Each BONK! event features a short question and answer session with the artists. This month's event features outstanding performances by poets Judith Goldman and Amaud Jamaul Johnson, and musician Rob Reid.
Judith Goldman earned a PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia University in 2007. Her collections of poetry include Vocoder (2001), DeathStar/rico-chet (2006), and the chapbook The Dispossessions (2009). The poems in DeathStar/rico-chet address the political, post-9/11 world, partly through the use of found material and fragmented language. Goldman is a Harper Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago. She co-edits, with Leslie Scalapino, the annual journal War and Peace, and was a co-editor of Krupskaya Press in 2002 and 2003.
Amaud Jamaul Johnson is a native son of Compton, California. He received his BA in English from Howard University and a MPS in African American Studies from Cornell University. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford, Amaud is a member of the Cave Canem Workshop. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Rivendell, Poetry Daily, From the Fishouse, and The Cave Canem Anthology. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
A voracious listener of traditional world music, musician Rob Reid draws from an eclectic range of genres such as bossa nova, Malian griot, and doo-wop to create a backdrop for songs about real and fictional characters. When performing live, Rob often uses a looping station to layer percussion, vocal harmonies, guitar, and kitchenware. In December 2009, he completed his third solo album, The Principles of Crop Rotation. Rob has brought his solo act out to countless venues ranging from coffee shops to restaurants, farmers markets to neighborhood taverns, and charity events to house concerts in Chicago, southeastern Wisconsin, and southern Michigan. In addition to his solo work, Rob has also played as a percussionist and backing vocalist for The Hump Night Thumpers and several other Chicago performers.
Local artists and performers are encouraged to consider sharing their talent/craft with the community via the BONK! series. For more information on how to participate or to view video of past performances please visit http://bonkperformanceseries.wordpress.com. You may also contact the Racine Public Library at 262.619.2571, Becky Spika at becky.spika@racinelibrary.info , or Nick Demske at nick.demske@racinelibrary.info.
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