1. Shadow Man
2. Reopen The Economy
3. Hex As A Language
4. Truth About Blackbirds

Artist's Statement

I believe in the magic and spellwork and offense of the poem. Like, going on the offensive. And I think these poems, delivered in this order, comprise a long-form spell. Poems are often positioned as defensive--healing and holding, a response to, an interpretation and reclaiming of. But I think writers like June Jordan, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and Saul Williams write like swinging on a face sometimes, making the system put its hands up for once. Observing, reporting, emotionally excavating injustice, yes, but also being able to go on the offensive, hexing what harms and blessing what builds. And in this time, after this last election, with much on the line, I’m trying to write good magic and step-the-hell-back for my kinfolk.




Chace Morris

Writer/Performer/Educator/Detroiter




About the Poet

Chace Morris is a poet, emcee, & Afrofuturist out of Detroit. His work is in constellation with that of June Jordan, Kendrick Lamar, Nina Simone, & Saul Williams, blending Afro-futurism, Black myth, and music as rebel magic.



He is a two-time Kresge Arts Fellow (2024 Live Arts Fellow as The TETRA, 2013 Literary Fellow), a Radical Imagination Grant recipient, and recipient of an Alain Locke Award from the Detroit Institution of Arts.



Chace is also the co-founder of The Digital Underground Railroad, an arts & ritual project, alongside his partner Sherina Rodriguez Sharpe. Together, they are known as The TETRA.



When not writing, Chace is deep into movie-loving, laughing as a form of self-medication, and curating playlists that can save the day.







About the Cover Artist
Shannon Rae Daniels is a Cantonese American visual artist and writer whose recent work has explored questions of impermanence, goodness, and beauty as they relate to the self and to communities at large — particularly American Chinatowns, which she is deeply invested in as someone with strong roots in New York City’s Chinatown. In 2023, she was selected for the Emerging Artists Program hosted by The Guild of Artists and Artisans in Ann Arbor, Michigan and then was chosen by a jury to show and sell her work at the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair. She has taught arts and humanities classes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston Arts Academy. She was born and raised in New York City and currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.



About the Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry

The Ann Arbor District Library, Fifth Avenue Studios, and 1473 are proud to present The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry. This series was created to celebrate and document the art of poetry in recorded form. Featuring poets from Ann Arbor, metro Detroit, and beyond, we hope that this series showcases and archives the incredible poetry scene here in Ann Arbor, metro Detroit, and beyond.

The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry is named after and dedicated to two of my high school teachers, Judi Coolidge and Tom Wagner (RIP) of Bay High School (Ohio), who encouraged in me, as well as thousands of their other students, a lifelong appreciation and open-minded love of the arts.
-Chien-An Yuan, 1473

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