Tara

About me:

Tara Betts is the author of ARC AND HUE, her debut collection on the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press in September 2009. Tara is a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. She is a Cave Canem graduate who has received her MFA in Poetry/Creative Writing from New England College and residencies from Ragdale Foundation, Centrum and Caldera and an Illinois Arts Council Artist fellowship. Tara's work has appeared in Essence, the Steppenwolf Theater production "Words on Fire," Obsidian III, Callaloo, PMS, Drum Voices Revue, WSQ, Columbia Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Hanging Loose, Drunken Boat and WombPoetry. Her work has been anthologized in Gathering Ground (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 (Southern Illinois University Press), ROLE CALL (Third World Press), These Hands I Know (Sarabande), Best Black Women's Erotica 2 (Cleis Press), Hurricane Blues (Southeast Missouri University Press), Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism (Parker Publishing), Fingernails Across a Chalkboard (Third World Press) and Letters to the World (Red Hen Press). Her work will appear in Mythium, Reverie, Meridians, TUESDAY: An Art Journal, and Thomas Sayers Ellis' Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press). Tara has also been a freelance writer for publications such as XXL, The Source, BIBR, Mosaic magazine and Black Radio Exclusive. Tara Betts encourages literacy and works with arts programs such as Urban Word NYC. 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, Dodge Foundation’s Poets-In-The-Schools program and London's Roundhouse. Tara Betts appeared on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam" She also appeared in the Black Family Channel series "SPOKEN" with Jessica Care Moore-Poole. She has also been one of the writers/performers in girlstory-an intergenerational, multicultural women's performance collective. Tara has also performed in plays, including two SouthWest V-Day productions of Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" at Chicago's DuSable Museum. After winning Guild Complex's Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, she represented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam. 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 and Grammy-winner Jill Scott. She also coached and mentored countless young writers and performers that have participated in the Brave New Voices and Louder Than a Bomb teen poetry slams.