Tara Betts
Tara Betts
Brooklyn, NY
R&B/Soul / Poetics / Hip Hop
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Tara Betts, writer/educator/performer, appeared on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam" and in the SouthWest V-Day production of Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" at Chicago's DuSable Museum. She also appeared in the Black Family Channel series "SPOKEN" with jessica Care moore. She has also been one of the writers/performers in girlstory-an intergenerational, multicultural women's performance collective.
After winning Guild Complex's Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, Tara published her collection of poems Can I Hang? She also represented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam and coached several youth slam teams. She has performed her work in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast and throughout the Midwest at venues such as Arie Crown Theater, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Studio Museum of Harlem, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Bar 13, Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Yerba Buena Cultural Center, The Metro, The Hip Hop Theater Festival, Ladyfest Midwest, the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, poetry slams, conferences, several colleges, universities and numerous public, private and alternative schools. She has shared the stage with Patricia Smith, Rosellen Brown, Afaa Michael Weaver, Kwame Dawes, Luis Rodriguez, MC Lyte, dead prez and Grammy-winner Jill Scott.
Tara's work has appeared in Essence, the Steppenwolf Theater production "Words on Fire," Obsidian III, Callaloo, Drum Voices Revue, WSQ and Columbia Poetry Review. Her work has been anthologized in Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade (University of Michigan Press), Bum Rush the Page (Three Rivers Press), The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks), Power Lines (Tia Chucha Press), Poetry Slam (Manic D Press), Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It? (Southern Illinois University Press), ROLE CALL (Third World Press), These Hands I Know (Sarabande), Best Black Women's Erotica 2 (Cleis Press), Hurricane Blues: How Katrina and Rita Ravaged a Nation (Southeast Missouri University Press), Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism (Parker Publishing LLC) and Fingernails Across a Chalkboard (Third World Press). Her work will appear in the anthologies Thomas Sayers Ellis' Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press) and Letters to the World (Red Hen Press).
In addition to her experiences with page and the stage, Tara Betts teaches writing and encourages literacy by working with arts programs such as Urban Word NYC and DreamYard. In Chicago, she was an influential educator through Young Chicago Authors and the internationally-acclaimed Gallery 37. Tara co-founded GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop for young women. She has also conducted short-term workshops in schools, community centers, Ms. Foundation, City Girls (a substance abuse rehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, Louder Arts Project, Cooper Union and London's Roundhouse. Tara, a Cave Canem graduate, received her MFA in Poetry from New England College and residencies from Soul Mountain, Ragdale Foundation, Centrum and Caldera and an Illinois Arts Council Artist fellowship in New Performance Forms. Tara Betts is a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.
After winning Guild Complex's Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, Tara published her collection of poems Can I Hang? She also represented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam and coached several youth slam teams. She has performed her work in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast and throughout the Midwest at venues such as Arie Crown Theater, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Studio Museum of Harlem, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Bar 13, Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Yerba Buena Cultural Center, The Metro, The Hip Hop Theater Festival, Ladyfest Midwest, the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, poetry slams, conferences, several colleges, universities and numerous public, private and alternative schools. She has shared the stage with Patricia Smith, Rosellen Brown, Afaa Michael Weaver, Kwame Dawes, Luis Rodriguez, MC Lyte, dead prez and Grammy-winner Jill Scott.
Tara's work has appeared in Essence, the Steppenwolf Theater production "Words on Fire," Obsidian III, Callaloo, Drum Voices Revue, WSQ and Columbia Poetry Review. Her work has been anthologized in Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade (University of Michigan Press), Bum Rush the Page (Three Rivers Press), The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks), Power Lines (Tia Chucha Press), Poetry Slam (Manic D Press), Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It? (Southern Illinois University Press), ROLE CALL (Third World Press), These Hands I Know (Sarabande), Best Black Women's Erotica 2 (Cleis Press), Hurricane Blues: How Katrina and Rita Ravaged a Nation (Southeast Missouri University Press), Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism (Parker Publishing LLC) and Fingernails Across a Chalkboard (Third World Press). Her work will appear in the anthologies Thomas Sayers Ellis' Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press) and Letters to the World (Red Hen Press).
In addition to her experiences with page and the stage, Tara Betts teaches writing and encourages literacy by working with arts programs such as Urban Word NYC and DreamYard. In Chicago, she was an influential educator through Young Chicago Authors and the internationally-acclaimed Gallery 37. Tara co-founded GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop for young women. She has also conducted short-term workshops in schools, community centers, Ms. Foundation, City Girls (a substance abuse rehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, Louder Arts Project, Cooper Union and London's Roundhouse. Tara, a Cave Canem graduate, received her MFA in Poetry from New England College and residencies from Soul Mountain, Ragdale Foundation, Centrum and Caldera and an Illinois Arts Council Artist fellowship in New Performance Forms. Tara Betts is a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.
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