Originally published by Nashville Scene.
Nashville has all kinds of “transportainment” vehicles crawling through its streets, including party barges, tractors, hot tubs and pedal taverns — a seemingly endless parade of gridlock-inducing tourist mobiles. A new four-wheeler is rolling into town next week, but this one will be bearing books, not bachelorettes.
The SpeakUp book truck is on a 1800-mile road trip from Brooklyn to New Orleans, and it’s making plenty of stops along the way. The 27-foot-long box truck is retrofitted with open-air bookshelves and enough room to haul thousands of books and literary magazines. Two New York City-based nonprofits, House of SpeakEasy, which owns the truck, and Narrative 4, launched a Kickstarter for the trip, and they’re partnering with local groups to host readings, workshops and story-exchanges led by acclaimed authors and emerging teen talents. They’ll also deliver books to schools, libraries, books-to-prison programs and other literacy partners and institutions.
Here in Nashville, the tour is collaborating with The Porch for Poetry to the People on Tuesday, June 18, at 6 p.m. at The Porch’s headquarters (2811 Dogwood Place). It will feature two of Nashville’s best. Meg Wade is a founder of the poetry-and-art-events outfit Be Witched . Her poetry is visceral and compelling, and she’s a great reader to boot. Wade will be reading poems from her award winning chapbook Slick Like Dark and some of her lesser-known work that she calls a “collection of field hollers.” She’ll be accompanied by TJ Jarrett , who will be reading new work. Jarrett is the author of two award-winning volumes of poetry, Zion and Ain’t No Grave. In 2010, Chapter 16’s Maria Browning described Jarrett’s work this way:
The free Nashville event also celebrated the 20th anniversary of Tin House with a conversation featuring founder Rob Spillman.