Finale Poetry Reading and Reception

Help the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival welcome our 2026 featured poets jessica Care moore and Alen Hamza. This year, we will be hosted by the wonderful folks at the Wellspring Dance Company, in their Cori Terry Theatre. The theatre will house our Finale Reading, and then we will head downstairs to the Black Arts and Cultural Center for the catered reception.

The Finale poetry reading will be ASL interpreted, please spread the word!

Parking information has been made available in the information section of this event. Please read it carefully, yes, it is possible to park downtown! The Epic Center is conveniently located near two parking structures, and there is street parking available.

You can read more about our poets below.

jessica Care moore:

jessica Care moore is an award-winning poet, recording artist, book publisher, activist, cultural arts curator, and filmmaker who has become one of the leading voices of her generation; she is Detroit’s Poet Laureate (appointed in 2024), the Executive Producer and Founder of the 20-year-old rock & roll concert and empowerment weekend Daughters of Betty – Powered by Black WOMEN Rock!, founder of The Moore Art House 501(c)(3), and the founder of Moore Black Press, which has published poets including Saul Williams, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, asha bandele, and Danny Simmons; she has recorded her poetry with Hip Hop legends like Common, Nas, Jeezy, Talib Kweli, Karriem Riggins, Jeff Mills, The Last Poets, Jose James, and Roy Ayers, is the author of *The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth*, *The Alphabet Verses The Ghetto*, *God is Not an American*, *Sunlight Through Bullet Holes* and *We Want Our Bodies Back*, and her poetry and voice are featured on the 4th floor of the Smithsonian’s New National Museum of African American History.

Alen Hamza:

Alen Hamza immigrated to the United States from Bosnia-Herzegovina as a refugee at the age of fifteen. He is the author of Twice There Was a Country, chosen by Brenda Hillman as the winner of the CSU Poetry Center First Book Award. His poems have appeared widely in literary journals, including AGNI, The Southern Review, Waxwing, Fence, and The Missouri Review. He has an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Utah. He has received fellowships from the Michener Center for Writers, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the University of Utah. Hamza lives in Kalamazoo, where he is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Western Michigan University.