October 2026
Furious Flower Reading Series X Día de los Muertos Ofrenda Exhibition presents Ariana Brown
Thursday, October 22nd| Doors Open: 5PM | Reading: 7PM | Memorial Hall Forum
Join us as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month alongside JMU’s Hispanic Caucus with a poetry reading by Black Mexican American poet Ariana Brown. This event will take place in the Memorial Hall Forum as part of the Día de los Muertos Ofrenda Exhibition. The evening will include a viewing of Hostile Terrain 94, an exhibition highlighting migration as a global human rights issue while focusing on the 1994 policy that still plays a pivotal role in US immigration at the US/Mexico border today. Alongside Ariana's performance, there will be a faculty-led discussion, a performance by the Lua Project, a tour of the exhibition, and participants will have the opportunity to purchase a copy of Ariana's book at the end of the event. This event is free and open to the public. This is event is being offered in collaboration with JMU's Hispanic Caucus, JMU Student Life, JMU Libraries, and CMSS. See full event details and registration information.
Artist Bio:
Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet based in Houston. She is the author of the poetry collections We Are Owed (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Her academic and poetic works explore queerness, Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, girlhood, loneliness, and care. Ariana is a national collegiate poetry slam champion, winner of two Academy of American Poets Prizes, Lambda Literary Fellow, and a recipient of a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant.
She holds a BA in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies from UT Austin, an MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. She currently develops ethnic studies and ELA curriculum for high schools and colleges and teaches creative writing to teens in Houston.
Hike & Write w/ Furious Flower Poetry Center
Saturday, October 24th | 1-5PM | Meet at UREC | Registration Required
On this adventure trip, participants will travel in a UREC van to Hone Quarry for a short 1-mile hike to an overlook called “Lover’s Leap." At the overlook, Program Manager Jazmin Witherspoon will lead a poetry workshop. No experience needed, beginners welcome.
November 2026
Furious Flower Reading Series With Amber Flora Thomas
Thursday, November 12th | 5:30PM | Gwendolyn Brooks Reading Room
Furious Flower’s final poetry reading before finals and the holiday season! Participants are invited to immerse themselves in the nature-laden poetry of Amber Flora Thomas. This poetry reading will take place at Carrier Library in the Gwendolyn Brooks reading room. This event is free and open to the public; free parking will be available across the street in the Grace Street Parking Garage.
Artist Bio:
Amber Flora Thomas is the author of three collections of poetry, including Eye of Water, which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. A recipient of the Dylan Thomas American Poet Prize, the Richard Peterson Prize, and the Ann Stanford Prize, her poetry has appeared in Tin House, The New England Review, Callaloo, Orion Magazine, Saranac Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review, as well as Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, and numerous other journals and anthologies. Thomas is a Cave Canem fellow and faculty member. She regularly teaches at the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and Sewanee Writers Conference. She earned an MFA at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She was born and raised in northern California.
