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In my first blog post last September, I mentioned that I’d just started co-curating a Chicago-based reading and performance series called The Swell, which began in July. A lot has been happening since then, and since we’re coming up on our one-year birthday, we’ve got some big things in store.

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For starters, The Swell {an art cooperative} is a Chicago-based reading and performance series that seeks to bridge gaps between genre, medium, and representation by creating a public space for sharing, challenging, and celebrating art within the community.

Tara Boswell, Patrick Samuel, and I all met in the MFA Poetry program at Columbia in 2012. Tara and Patrick both graduated last year, and I’m finishing up in a month. They came to me last summer with the idea of starting a reading series, and since then we’ve tried to push the idea of what a reading series can and should do. The poetry scene in Chicago is incredible, but we’ve noticed that, like anything else, it’s full of niches. We want to scramble all that. Double dip. Cross-contaminate. Whatever you want to call it. Although a few of our Sets have been primarily poetry—and, really, poetry is still our focus—we want to explode that kind of unitary identity to incorporate performance, new media work, sound art, and visual art.

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For each set, we move to a different venue, hoping to foster new relationships within the community, bringing in new artists and audiences. In September, we did a couple things. We didn’t know then what kind of winter we were going to be in for, but we still knew we wanted to take advantage of fall, so we kicked off the month with The Swell Presents: Hello Shark. Linc Halloran set up and played in the backyard to release his new album Break Arms. Folks brought blankets, beers, and various charcuterie to enjoy some music and video projection al fresco.

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Later that month, we had our Set 2 at Strange Beauty Show. For Set 3, last November, we packed out the gallery space at Ground Control. Check out this great write-up and video post from Victoria Sanz on Set 3.

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Set 4 was a little different, because it was a late-night set after a fabulous farm dinner at Lula Cafe.

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In February, we went to Hungry Brain for a killer line-up of poets for Set 5.

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Set 6, which will be THIS FRIDAY, MAY 9th, has been in the works since January. We’re pairing up with CANVAS in Wicker Park for some real fireworks. There will be poetry from Sarah Carson and Abraham Smith, artwork by Haley Rovak and Mac Blackout, a performance by Julynn Wilderson, and live music with everythingsalright. This is one you definitely don’t want to miss.

We’re also extremely excited and honored to be a part of this year’s PRINTERS BALL at Spudnik Press. With several other incredible reading series being represented, we’ll be having a pop-up performance at 5:30 in the Spudnik Annex. Come check us out! (Besides, Printers Ball, after all, was one of my first experiences at Columbia College, back in 2011, and one of the reasons I decided to attend the MFA program here.)

To celebrate our one-year birthday in July, we’re going all out. We’re talking about a backyard BBQ, more live music, sound and video art, a book fair, screenprinted canvas bags, and a whole bunch of other rad stuff. As part of our cooperative, we’re also going to announce a new implementation of The Swell: for each Set, we’re going to bring on a guest curator—a contributor from a previous Set—to collaborate with us to better reach across artistic boundaries and genre distinctions.

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So, lots of great stuff coming up for The Swell, so be sure to keep us on your radar. Keep posted by checking out our Tumblr and Facebook pages. And hopefully we’ll see you this Friday at Canvas for an amazing Set 6!