Join us in welcoming Candace Williams to Twenty Stories in celebration of their new poetry collection I Am the Most Dangerous Thing, out May 9th via Alice James books! Candace will read selections of their work, followed by a craft conversation with local poet Charlotte Abotsi and an audience Q&A.
This event is free and open to all!
ABOUT I AM THE MOST DANGEROUS THING
Over the course of these poems, the Black, queer protagonist begins to erase violent structures and fill the white spaces with her hard-won wisdom and love. I am the Most Dangerous Thing doesn't just use poetry to comment on life and history. The book is a comment on writing itself. What have words done? When does writing become a form of disengagement, or worse, violence?
The book is an exercise in paring the state down to its true logic of violence and imagining what can happen next. There are many contradictions--Although the protagonist teaches the same science that was used to justify enslavement and a racial caste system, she knows she will die at the hands of science and denies the state the last word by penning her own death certificate. As an educator and knowledge worker, she is an overseer of the same racist, misogynistic, and homophobic systems that terrorize her. Yet, she musters the courage to kill Kurtz, a primordial vision of white terror. She is Black and queer and fat and angry and chill and witty and joyful and depressed and lovely and flawed and an (im)perfect dagger to the heart of white supremacist capitalism.
ABOUT CANDACE WILLIAMS
Candace Williams is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. I am the Most Dangerous Thing (Alice James Books, 2023) is their debut full-length poetry collection. Candace earned their Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) from Claremont McKenna College and Master of Arts in Education from Stanford University. They grew up in the Pacific Northwest and found love and poetry in Brooklyn, New York. Now, Candace lives and makes art in New England.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE ABOTSI
Charlotte Abotsi is a writer, educator, and filmmaker from Providence, Rhode Island. As a spoken word poet, she has competed in several international poetry slams, placing in the top 20 poets at the 2016 Women of the World Poetry Slam, and winning the 2017 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam competition; her work has been written about in HuffPost and Mic.com. As a filmmaker, Abotsi has focused on documentary film, debuting her short documentary Process at the 2018 Ocean State Film Festival. She has received fellowships from the Pink Door Writing Retreat, the Incubator for Community-Engaged Poets, Tin House, DreamYard’s Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, AIR Serenbe, and Define American. She curates the poetry-based web series Ours Poetica for The Poetry Foundation.