Announcing BMRC Poet-in-the-Archives

The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is honored to welcome Chicago Poet Laureate, avery r young as its inaugural 2024 Poet-in-the-Archives fellow.

During his three month fellowship, avery will carry our research and make use of archival materials in BMRC member collections to expand his mtu [no BOY here] body of work. His project will focus on the second wave of the Great Migration to Chicago. Through an installation encompassing composition, film, poetry, and performance, young will collect stories, imagery, and artifacts to create sound, text, and sculptural monuments. This work traces a semi-autobiographical journey of a sharecropper from Lexington, Mississippi, traveling up I-55 to Chicago’s electric Maxwell Street corridor to sing the blues. The Poet Laureate's goal is to design and initiate the fabrication of a monument for the Great Migrators.

The BMRC launched the Poet-in-the-Archives program as a way to activate (increase awareness and use of) the archival materials in our member collections. It looks forward to sharing avery's work with the public in Spring 2025.