Commando

E’mon Lauren is from the South Side of Chicago. She is a Scorpio enthusiast and a firm believer in Dorthy Dandridge reincarnation. E’mon uses poetry and playwriting to explore a philosophy of hood womanism. She was named Chicago’s first Youth Poet Laureate. A former Kuumba Lynx Performance Ensemble slam team member and Louder Than a Bomb champion, E’mon has performed in many venues including The Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival and The Chicago Hip Hop Theatre Fest. She was a 2016 finalist for The Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. E’mon has been published in The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, The Down Dirty Word, and elsewhere. She has been featured in Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and on WGN Radio. She is a member of Young Chicago Authors Teaching Artist Corps.

Part morning affirmation, part clapback, E'mon's poems pay homage to the hood under her nose and the body in front of her mirror. Commando carves out a space for both to exist and be loved without fear, "someplace where we can just walk". --Jamila Woods, singer, songwriter and poetEmon Lauren's Commando is a chapbook of admirable promise. Too often, if we hear about ourselves and our neighborhoods at all, the telling is secondhand and suspiciously motivated. Behold, in this book, a poet of our own. Watch her put her hands down into her home and pick up precisely what she wants to show us, and what we need to see. This is the beginning. -- Nate Marshall, author of The Wild Hundreds