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Ovary Ovation
Chicago Tribune, 2002
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Summer of slam
Chicago Sun-Times, 1999
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Tara Betts Brings Motion to Poetry
Citizen Newspaper, 2002
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Slam Chance
Chicago Reader, 2004
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"Tara Betts represents the best things about public poetry. She's an artist growing, changing and learning...She didn't play to the crowd for laughs or applause, but came with her truth in all of its vulnerable beauty."
- Tayari Jones, author of "Leaving Atlanta" and "The Untelling"
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"An amazing poet in her own right."
- Luis Rodriguez, author of "Always Running"
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"Tara Betts is all sugar cane and then some. "
- Rives, HBO Def Poet, children's author, www.shopliftwindchimes.com
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"Tara Betts' moving poem "Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamp," traces the forgotten lives, using repetition and rhythm as incantation: 'Backs bent to acquiesce as a road or ramp./Waters subsume histories like regret./Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamp.' (73) This is an ode to those who changed the world in obscurity, died, forgotten, or disappeared under a mountain of glory afforded to other 'names'--the rich and beautiful faces we see on t-shirts or television screens."
- Magdalena Ball, www.compulsivereader.com on
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"Tara Jean Betts (I call her full name 'cause the syllables are the same as hallelujah) has crafted a manual of sweet lyric, corner doowop and unsettling truths, an unerring guidebook for the colored girl who is born into several worlds at once. Praise this raging poetess for trumpeting that hidden voice, for baring its blade edges and giving it space to scream. The poems of Tara Jean are too true to be kept secret, and too stunning to be denied."
- Patricia Smith
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"Betts' consideration of her language and the study she invests behind it is becoming well-known."
- Kurt Heintz, www.e-poets.net
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