Jazz Poetry 2025: Jerome Jennings & iLL Philosophy, Carly Inghram, Montaser Abdel Mawgoud, Bo Mima
May 20 @ 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm EDT
https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-jerome-jennings-ill-philosophy/
City of Asylum is thrilled to host this Jazz Poetry performance in collaboration with our first-ever Bridges Creative Summit! Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set by the band, followed by a collaborative performance with each poet. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each performance.
This program welcomes sextet Jerome Jennings & iLL Philosophy. The brainchild of drummer and Emmy Award–winning composer Jerome Jennings, the group performs original compositions that fuse jazz with blues, bebop, Afrobeat, and hip hop, featuring turntables courtesy of DJ OOOChild. This performance is a collaboration and improvisation with talented poets from all over the world, including former ICORN resident Montaser Abdel Mawgoud; Bo Mima, the newest City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence; and Carly Inghram, a poet from Atlanta whose 2021 collection, The Animal Indoors (Autumn House Press), was selected by Terrance Hayes as the winner of the Book Prize of the Center for African American Poetry & Poetics.
Featured Musicians:
Jerome Jennings: drums, compositions
Stephane Clement: trumpet
Neta Raanan: tenor and soprano saxophones
Alexis Marcelo: piano
Malik Kiyoshi McLaurine: bass
DJ OOOChild: turntables
About the Band:
Jerome Jennings is a drummer, activist, and Emmy Award–winning composer. His debut album, The Beast, was a reflection of the everyday joys and traumas of Black life in the USA. It was named one of the top three jazz releases by NPR and received a four-star rating in Downbeat Magazine. Jerome’s sophomore recording, Solidarity, focused on the experiences of African American women, examining their lives through the prisms of the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. His new musical group, Jerome Jennings & iLL Philosophy—drums, trumpet, sax, keys, bass, and turntables (courtesy of DJ OOOChild)—performs Jerome’s original compositions, which fuse jazz with blues, bebop, Afrobeat, and hip hop.
About the Poets:
Carly Inghram is a poet from Atlanta. She received an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her work is featured in The Indianapolis Review, Prelude, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Sometimes the Blue Trees, was released from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press in 2019. Her 2021 collection, The Animal Indoors, was selected by Terrance Hayes as the winner of the Book Prize of the Center for African American Poetry & Poetics.
Montaser Abdel Mawgoud is an award-winning poet, writer, and literary critic from Alexandria, Egypt, based in Norway. He holds a BA in Arabic Language & Literature. Montaser has participated in numerous international festivals, and his works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Romanian, Macedonian, Swedish, and Norwegian. He has published four poetry collections, including Wars and Defeats (2004) and In Praise of Small Towns (2019), as well as a novel, Typewriter Teacher and His One Colour (2021), among other works. He has two new books on the way: Archipelago Isolation (Svalbard Diaries) and In the Presence of the Mountains (Haiku poems). After the publication of his poetry collection, There Are Things That Will Never Be Tried (2012), Montaser Abdel Mawgoud was accused of blasphemy and atheism, facing legal challenges and pressure to withdraw his work. In 2018, Abdel Mawgoud arrived in Trondheim, where he was an ICORN Artist-in-Residence until 2020.