Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM
2220 Arts + Archives, Los Angeles
The Poetic Research Bureau presents the Los Angeles launch of *raw & zero* by imogen smith, published by Nightboat. With additional readers Misha Crafts, Alma Valdez Garcia, Miguel Gutierrez and Gabrielle Civil. ∆ *Occupied with trans spirituality, the genocide in Palestine, and the manifold intricacies of queer love and struggle, the poems in* **imogen smith***’s second collection,* **raw & zero***, open up an unabashedly musical incitement. At the heart of this collection lies the tensions between the philosophical and the erotic. Language unspools throughout long form pieces influenced by concrete poetry, as the poet plays with a sense of shape, space, and symbols. With* raw & zero*, smith charts medical transition, a budding Islamic practice, and civic resistance, felt in the book’s themes of meaning-making, hope, love, lust, identity, and community alongside personal, regional, and global grief. –* Nightboat