PGHwrites: Doralee Brooks’ The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain

After two years as the Poet Laureate of Allegheny County, Doralee Brooks has curated a reading with eight fellow poets to celebrate the launch of her anthology, The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain. The anthology, composed of works by more than 90 Pittsburgh-area writers, highlights poetry inspired by Pittsburgh places, history, colloquialisms, and quirks, and is available now through Main Street Rag.

For this program, the eight poets (each a contributor to Doralee’s anthology) will read three poems including one from a legacy poet with connections to Pittsburgh, one from a non-living poet,  and one published in the Gulf Tower anthology itself. 

The City of Asylum Poet Laureate of Allegheny County is an award and two-year service position offered to an emerging or established poet who seeks to engage with residents of Allegheny County through poetry.

This program will be followed by a small reception for the poets and attendees beginning at 4pm.

About the Curator:

Doralee Brooks is an educator and poet. She is the author of When I Hold You up to the Light, winner of the Cathy Smith Bowers chapbook prize 2019 published by Main Street Rag and the editor of The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain: Pittsburgh Poems forthcoming from Main Street Rag winter 2025. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. This fall, her poem “Hips,” was posted as November’s Poem of the Month on MER’s (Mom Egg Review) website and nominated for a Pushcart prize. Professor Emerita of the Community College of Allegheny County, Doralee currently facilitates a Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshop at Carlow University. She holds an MEd from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in poetry from Carlow University. Doralee is a fellow of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project and attended Cave Canem Fellows workshops. She was the City of Asylum’s Poet Laureate of Allegheny County from 2022-2024.

About the Poets:

Tess Barry was shortlisted for the Manchester Poetry Prize. Twice a finalist for North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize and Aesthetica Magazine’s Poetry Award, she has also been shortlisted four times for the Bridport Poetry Prize. Her work has been widely published in the U.S. and abroad and appeared in journals such as: Aesthetica, The Compass Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review, Cordella Magazine, Mslexia, North American Review, and The Stinging Fly, among others. In addition to holding an MFA from Carlow University, Barry holds an MA in English from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a Fellow of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project and the Director of Carlow University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, a dual residency program in the U.S. and Ireland.

Cameron Barnett is a poet and teacher from Pittsburgh. He is the author of Murmur and The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water, the winner of the Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize, and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He is a graduate of Duquesne University and earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh. He was recognized in 2019 with the Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award for Emerging Artist. Cameron’s work explores the complexity of race, place, and relationships for Black people in America.

Kelley Beeson holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame and a
Master of Library and Information Science from The University of Pittsburgh. She is the
recipient of the 2023 Lefty Blondie Press Chapbook Award for her book, Undress. Her work
appears in Kestrel, Four Way Review, Rogue Agent, Kaliope, and has been twice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Kelley grew up in Pittsburgh and left only once for graduate school and deeply missed the hills and valleys of Western PA. She lives in the city, works as a crackerjack librarian, and writes as a mad-proud member of the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops since 1992.

Shaheen Dil is a reformed academic, banker, and consultant who now devotes herself to poetry. She was born in Bangladesh and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. She has published two full-length books of poetry, Acts of Deference (Fakel 2016) and The Boat-maker’s Art (Kelsay Books 2024.) Her book, Letters to My Younger Self, is forthcoming from Gyroscope Press in 2025. Shaheen is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, the DVP/US1 Poets, and the Porch Poets. She holds an AB from Vassar College, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. Additional information is available on her website: shaheendil.com

Celeste Gainey is the author of the poetry collection, the GAFFER, as well as the chapbooks In the land of speculation & seismography and …while we were waiting to become part of our century. Graduating with a BFA in Film & Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Gainey earned an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Carlow University and recently served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Allegheny County for City of Asylum. The first woman to be admitted to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) as a gaffer, she has spent many years working with light in film and architecture.

Sheila Carter-Jones was born and raised in a small coal mining town in Western Pennsylvania which is the muse for many of her poems. Sheila currently facilitates a writing workshop in Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Program. Her book, Every Hard Sweetness was released from BOA Editions this past April. And recently, a chapbook entitled Elegy-ish was published from Seven Kitchens Press. Sheila lives in Pittsburgh, PA and when not writing pen-to-paper poems, she’s writing poems in her head—always in creative incubation.

Carl Marcum is a Latino poet from Tucson, Arizona. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA. Carl Marcum is the author of Cue Lazarus, and A Camera Obscura, winner of the Letras Latinas / Red Hen Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Wind Shifts: An Anthology of New Latino Poets, and Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Latinx Sci-Fi and Fantasy among other journals and anthologies. Marcum earned his MFA from the University of Arizona and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has been a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Illinois Arts Council and served as a Canto Mundo Fellow. He taught for several years at DePaul University in Chicago and now lives in Pittsburgh where he teaches in the BXA Intercollege Degree Program at Carnegie Mellon University.

Fred Shaw is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh and was recently named to the Advisory Board for the International Poetry Forum. He also curates the online PQ Poem feature for Pittsburgh Quarterly where he is lead book reviewer. His first collection, Scraping Away was published by CavanKerry Press in 2020. A second book is in the works.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant Cucina Alfabeto is open for dinner from 5-10pm. Please visit Open Table or call 412-435-1111 to make a reservation.