INVASIVE SPECIES 2: Literary Panel & Open Mic Night

As INVASIVE SPECIES 2 expands beyond the gallery and into literature, this evening brings together writers and artists whose practices explore identity, survival, womanhood, and the complicated ways we move through the worlds around us. Moderated by Annar Veröld, a Honduran-American artist and the publisher of the small, women-led press Host Publications, the conversation will feature Jasmine Games, Julie Poole, and Katy Horan. The panel will engage with themes from the exhibition and consider how identity, lived experience, and the body inform writing and art. The conversation will include readings from each panelist, followed by an open mic for members of the community to share their own work. Accessibility Info: Future Front is fully accessible for wheelchairs and has appropriately sized bathrooms. Tactile graphics created in partnership with the Clovernook Center for the Blind will be available to support blind and visually impaired visitors in experiencing the exhibition. About the Panelists: Jasmine Games Jasmine Games (she/they) is a Black, queer poet, theatre maker, and educator born in Dallas, raised in Houston, and rooted in Austin, TX. Her work lives at the intersections of poetry, performance, and social justice, where she uses words and theatre as tools for healing, disruption, and transformation. She serves as Artistic Director of The Poet House, home to every.Word Poetry and Courageous Cadence, and as Director of Education & Social Justice at The VORTEX. Through these roles, she produces and directs theatre, hosts open mics, and leads writing and performance workshops in poetry, playwriting, devised theatre, and applied theatre. An award-winning artist, Games received the 2021 Sexton Prize for Poetry for her debut collection, Somebody’s Daughter. She is also a Winifred Ward Scholar and a finalist of the 2025 Blackberry Peach National Poetry Slam and the 2025 Right2Write Poetry Slam Festival. Julie Poole: Julie Poole (she/they) was born in Seattle,…