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Tennessee Reed // Spell Albuquerque: Memoirs of a "Difficult" Student

Sunday, 06 September 2009
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

"I'm not like them," Tennessee Reed would tell her teachers.  Diagnosed at an early age with several language-based learning disorders, the experts agreed, Tennessee would never read nor write.  But despite an educational and medical system which prophesied her failure, Tennessee published her first poetry collection, Circus in the Sky (I. Reed Books, 1988) at the age of eleven.  By the time she was a teenager, composers Meredith Monk and Carman Moore had set Tennessee's poetry to music, and she traveled the world, sharing her gift. 

In her recently published memoir, Spell Albuquerque, Tennessee exposes an educational system intent on labeling those who think differently as stupid, crazy or lazy.  A system so inflexibly racist, dropout rates amongst Hispanic and Black teenagers continue to rise at an unprecedented rate.  Her stories are sometimes shocking, at other times hopeful, and the occasional heroic figure does emerge: an outstanding teacher, creative educational administrators, and Tennessee herself, whose audacity and resolve is nothing short of inspirational.

Please join us at Red Emma's with author Tennessee Reed so you can hear her story for yourself!

Location:

URL: http://redemmas.org/event/1643