Anandita Vidyarthi Performs “UIC” at Chancellor Amiridis’ State of the University Address and Publishes Poem Entitled “Bi Bi Brown Girl”
Anandita Vidyarthi was asked by the Chancellor’s Office to share a poem at Chancellor Amiridis’ State of the University address on Tuesday, April 5th. She performed a new poem entitled “UIC.” View video HERE. She appears at the 8 minute:42 second mark.
Also, Anandita's poem, “Bi Bi Brown Girl,” which she wrote in high school has been published in a highly acclaimed anthology edited by Peter Kahn, Hanif Abdurraqib, Dan “Sully” Sullivan and Franny Choi. Entitled Respect the Mic (2022, Penguin Random House), this anthology is a compilation of 20 years of poetry from students and alumni of Chicago’s Oak Park River Forest High School Spoken Word Club.
You can read more about this work here, alongside with a shout-out to Anandita’s poem: https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/morning-edition/npr-story/1080146117 and hear her here https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1080146117.
Anandita is a GLAS minor, an Interdisciplinary Education in the Arts Major, and a member of the GLAS Student Advisory Board. She co-founded the creative collective Asian ink, worked as an exhibitions and programming intern for Gallery 400, mentored youth in the creative arts at OPEF Base Camp, and worked as a visual artist for the Dis/Placements: A People’s History of Uptown Project where you can see some of her beautiful artwork.