Release date:
August 25, 2026
ISBN:
979-8-9925941-8-8
105 pages
Cover art:
Maya Hunter
In his first collection in a dozen years, Chicago-based poet, artist, and musician Marvin Tate explores memory, identity, and the unseen emotional labor of survival in Black urban life. Informed by Tate’s experiences growing up on Chicago’s West Side, these works parse the ongoing process of self-definition across varied environments: street, stage, memory, interior life. Moving between poetry, monologue, and performance score, 4th Shift traces how masculinity, race, sexuality, class, and artistic identity are formed, challenged, and reimagined over time.
Marvin Tate is a Chicago-based poet, multidisciplinary artist, and performer whose work bridges spoken word, music, and visual art. Born and raised in the North Lawndale neighborhood, Tate emerged from the city’s vibrant slam scene in the 1980s, becoming Chicago’s poetry slam champion in 1990 and a defining voice in its experimental arts community.A longtime cultural innovator, Marvin Tate blends surreal humor, social critique, and lyrical storytelling across forms, from his acclaimed poetry collections Schoolyard of Broken Dreams and The Amazing Mister Orange to his work as frontman of the genre-defying ensemble D-Settlement. For decades, he has remained a vital presence in Chicago’s creative landscape—mentor, collaborator, and boundary-pushing artist—crafting work that reflects the complexity, struggle, and imagination of urban life.
More Praise for 4th Shift
“If you’ve ever heard Marvin Tate perform, you know that each show is a rollicking escapade into the unpredictable. In 4th Shift, a contemplative Tate explores the past, finding his voice, and Chicago—the city where he came of age, that city as it was and how it is.” —Tara Betts, author of Refuse to Disappear
“The poems in 4th Shift are arranged as a performance of ‘stories sketched from almost love.’ The poet acts as a DJ or as a jazz musician using tempo and phrasing to conduct us through a neighborhood alive in real-time of memory. The streets are tough, sometimes ugly, but lovely. The writing is concrete and precise. These are read-out-loud poems, and I can’t wait to hear them again. They ‘make the neighborhood exhale.’ I love this book and these poems.” —Tim Moder, poet and member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
