Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents Holler Salon Featuring Vincente Perez, Matthew E. Henry, and Erin Hoover

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to host Holler Salon with a poetry reading and dinner at Firefly Farms. An extension of our award-winning Sundress Reading Series, Holler Salon aims to encourage conversation and collaboration between creative individuals in a variety of disciplines. The event, to be held from 6-9PM on Saturday, October 28th, will feature performances from poets Vincente Perez, Matthew E. Henry, and Erin Hoover, as well as a HOLLERween costume contest.

Vincente is a a light skinned man with dark brown curly hair going past his shoulders. He is smiling at the camera. He is wearing a red and white floral pattern shirt and the top button is open allowing a small peak at a gold necklace. The background is blurred and features a large tree and foliage.

Vincente Perez is a poet and scholar working at the intersection of Poetry, Hip-Hop, and digital culture. He is a PhD Candidate in the Performance Studies program and a Poetry and the Senses Fellow (2021) at UC Berkeley. His chapbook, Other Stories to Tell Ourselves is out now (Newfound 2023). Their poems have appeared in Obsidian, Poet Lore, Honey Literary, Poetry.onl, Snarl Journal, Digging Through the Fat, & more!

Matthew E. Henry before a microphone, reading poetry.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six collections, including the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022) and The Third Renunciation (NYQ Books, 2023). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH’s poetry appears in Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and The Worcester Review among others. MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.

Female-presenting writer with white skin and unpinned hair above shoulder length, with neutral expression and hands crossed in front, looking directly at the camera. She wears a black and white striped blouse, and sits forward facing against the back of a beige chair.

Erin Hoover is the author of Barnburner (Elixir, 2018) and No Spare People (Black Lawrence, 2023). She is an assistant professor of English at Tennessee Tech University and a single parent living in rural Tennessee, where she curates and hosts the monthly, in-person reading series, Sawmill Poetry, and produces the “Not Abandon, but Abide” interview series for the Southern Review of Books. The Holler Salon is the first appearance in Hoover’s No Spare People Tour, in which she’ll read in Nashville, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, Birmingham, New Orleans, and more. She’s thrilled to return to Firefly Farms after being in residency there this past June.

Firefly Farms is a 45-acre farm that focuses on subsistence farming and raising small livestock located at 195 Tobby Hollow Ln, Knoxville, TN. While dinner is provided, attendees are invited to BYOB. Please also note that parking is limited, so we encourage carpooling.