Nashville has all kinds of “transportainment” vehicles crawling through its streets, including party barges, tractors, hot tubs and pedal taverns — a seemingly endless parade of gridlock-inducing tourist mobiles. A new four-wheeler is rolling into town next week, but this one will be bearing books, not bachelorettes.
The SpeakUp book truck is on a 1800-mile road trip from Brooklyn to New Orleans, and it’s making plenty of stops along the way. The 27-foot-long box truck is retrofitted with open-air bookshelves and enough room to haul thousands of books and literary magazines. Two New York City-based nonprofits, House of SpeakEasy, which owns the truck, and Narrative 4, launched a Kickstarter for the trip, and they’re partnering with local groups to host readings, workshops and story-exchanges led by acclaimed authors and emerging teen talents. They’ll also deliver books to schools, libraries, books-to-prison programs and other literacy partners and institutions.
Here in Nashville, the tour is collaborating with The Porch for Poetry to the People on Tuesday, June 18, at 6 p.m. at The Porch’s headquarters (2811 Dogwood Place). It will feature two of Nashville’s best. Meg Wade is a founder of the poetry-and-art-events outfit Be Witched. Her poetry is visceral and compelling, and she’s a great reader to boot. Wade will be reading poems from her award winning chapbook Slick Like Dark and some of her lesser-known work that she calls a “collection of field hollers.” She’ll be accompanied by TJ Jarrett, who will be reading new work. Jarrett is the author of two award-winning volumes of poetry, Zion and Ain’t No Grave. In 2010, Chapter 16’s Maria Browning described Jarrett’s work this way:
Jarrett has a deft but forceful style that combines with potent subject matter to create poems of great intensity. She makes masterful and subtle use of imagery, but the power of these poems lies more in her gift for conveying directly some of the most elusive truths of the human heart.
The event will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the excellent lit magazine
Tin Housewith a conversation with founder Rob Spillman. The event is free.
