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An Evening of Poetry

Steve Abbott, Taylor Byas, and Juan Armando Rojas read selections from their work and explore the world of poetry that has inspired them.

About the Poets

Columbus-native Steve Abbott has authored five chapbooks and two full-length collections, A Green Line Between Green Fields and A Language the Image Speaks, 46 ekphrastic poems accompanying the artworks that inspired them. He was a founder and co-host of The Poetry Forum, which between 1984 and 2023 became the nation’s second-longest-running poetry series. He has also co-edited three poetry anthologies and edits Ohio Poetry Association's annual journal, Common Threads.

Taylor Byas, Ph.D., is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times from Soft Skull Press, won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry, and the 2024 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Her second full-length, Resting Bitch Face (2025), was a September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. She is also a coeditor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol X: Alabama, from Texas Review Press, and Poemhood: Our Black Revival, a YA anthology from HarperCollins. She is represented by Noah Grey Rosenzweig at Triangle House Literary.

Juan Armando Rojas is a Mexican-American transborder poet, essayist, and scholar. He is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently Aurora Boreal (2023), an audio-poetry album available on all major streaming platforms. His bilingual collection The Path That Carries Our Names, co-translated with U.S. poet and translator Paula J. Lambert, features poems that have appeared in Mid-American Review, Plume, and Taos Poetry Journal. Rojas’ work has been translated into English, Arabic, Portuguese, and Italian, and is widely recognized for its exploration of borderland identity, language, and cultural memory. He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from the University of Arizona, completed postdoctoral studies at Amherst College (2002–2004), and served as poet-in-residence at the University of Coimbra in Portugal (2011). In addition to his creative work, Rojas has held various academic leadership roles in the United States and is the recipient of numerous literary awards and research grants for his contributions to poetry and transnational cultural discourse.

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