Urban America’s gritty underbelly has served as a muse for these four men. Two of them survived incarceration. All have traversed the cracked pavement of urban blight to write books of critical acclaim. These men tell their stories – in prose and poetry – about their journeys and the influence of the “ugly beautiful” in their work.

Writer Randall Horton joins poet and playwright John Murillo; poet and memoirist R. Dwayne Betts and poet Marcus Jackson on the Gwendolyn Brooks Center Conference panel, which is inspired by late poet and author Etheridge Knight, who served time in an Indiana prison before being discovered by Gwendolyn Brooks. Angela Jackson also reads from her new book.

Recorded Friday, April 02, 2010 at Chicago State University.