On August 1, 2024, the Curation & Exhibitions Interest Group visited the Poetry Foundation for a guided tour of their current exhibit A Bigger Table: 50 Years of the Chicago Poetry Center. The exhibition celebrates the Chicago Poetry Center’s 50th anniversary as a community-driven organization dedicated to enabling poets and using poetry to allow for critical conversations.

Poetry Foundation Creative Director and Curator Fred Sasaki and Chicago Poetry Center Executive Director B. Sampson gave the group an overview of the exhibition’s development process and a tour of items displayed in the main gallery, the library, and the building exterior. The curators recapped the long, intertwined history of their two organizations and screened a 40-minute documentary by Media Associate Moyo Abiona about the exhibit and the Chicago Poetry Center.

Curation & Exhibitions Interest Group moderator Patti Gibbons and twelve attendees participated in the event.

The exhibit runs through September 14. Learn more about it and the Poetry Foundation here.

Image: curator Fred Sasaki (far left) shows the group facsimile posters from Chicago Poetry Center events on the building exterior.