Caleb "The Negro Artist" Rainey
Upcoming performance courtesy of Central College and the Pella Public Library
Caleb Rainey is brilliant. Let’s start with that. Don’t just listen to me; see for yourself. Below is a video of him performing his work, “To the Girl Who Wants to be a Poem.”
Caleb is a master storyteller, writer, and performance artist. He’s a kind, thoughtful, warm, and generous man who can also be angry when we all probably should be. I met Caleb last year at Julie Gammack’s incredible Okoboji Writers Retreat.
It’s hard to describe how I feel about Caleb. I was only with him along with a couple of hundred other people for a few days several months ago, but it seems like I have known him forever.
Caleb is coming to Central College in Pella for a performance next week, Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 7:00 pm at the Cox-Snow Auditorium on the Central campus. Central College is hosting him along with the Pella Public Library. The event is called “An Evening with Caleb Rainey: The Heart of a Negro Artist.”
After the performance, Caleb and I will sit down for an on-stage interview! It will be fun, I promise.
If you can’t make it, there will be a live stream for the event, and it will be archived for viewing later. Here is the link.
And here is Caleb’s bio:
Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey is an author, performer, and producer. He hails from Columbia, Missouri, and holds a bachelor’s degree in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Iowa. His debut book, Look, Black Boy, became Amazon’s #1 new release in African American poetry and was featured on Iowa Public Radio. His second book, Heart Notes was published in 2019. In 2020 he was named Best Poet/Spoken Word Performer in Cedar Rapids & Iowa City. In 2021 he converted the poems from his first book to create his first spoken word album, Look, Black Boy. He co-founded the literary magazine Black Art; Real Stories was published in Iowa’s Best Emerging Poets – 2019, the Little Village Magazine, and wrote a monthly column for The Real Mainstream.
As a performer, he is the winner of the Des Moines Poetry Slam, the Iowa City Poetry Slam, a two-time winner of the Fire & Ice Poetry Slam, and a finalist for the UNESCO City of Literature Global Poetry Slam – Iowa City. He has done spoken word across the nation including Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, Illinois, New York City, and has even performed internationally in London, England. He was the opening poet for Dan Brown, featured on the album Blk Boi Joy, and acted in the Iowa debut of the plays, Exit Strategy and Luna Gale.
When he is not writing and performing he is actively curating a community of spoken word poets in Iowa City through his creation of a high school program, IC Speaks, and producing local events like the Mic Check Poetry Festival.
I hope to see you there; if not, please enjoy the live stream that you will be able to find here.
For paid subscribers, you will find the link to tomorrow’s monthly Zoom meeting with members of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative below. It begins at noon.
Please take a look at the work of other Iowa Writers’ Collaborative columnists—they are doing amazing things. If you can afford it, please become a paid subscriber to our work. Here we are in alphabetical order:
Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights
Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politic Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Macey Spensley: The Midwest Creative, Iowa
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
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