In Volume Six: Chapter Fourteen of The Program, we welcome Candace Marquez Green, a Chicago-born and Chicago-based community activist, entrepreneur, writer, poet, and author of the new poetry collection, "In Glimpses and Reminisces". Candace holds a Bachelor’s degree in Entertainment Business, a Master of Arts in Public Relations, and a Master of Business Administration. She is the recipient of the 2022 Chicago Defender Woman of Excellence Award, was named one of Crain’s Chicago Business and Black Women’s Professional League 40 Under 40, and currently serves on the board of the Chicago Poetry Center, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to poetry across diverse communities throughout Chicago.

Our conversation explores the many layers of Candace’s creative identity, beginning with her long history in pageantry. She reflects on what pageantry taught her about discipline, confidence, access, and leadership, while also addressing the more complicated narratives often associated with the pageant world.

From there, we transition into her creative history and examine the parallels between pageantry and poetry — performance and vulnerability, composure and truth — and how those worlds have shaped, rather than contradicted, one another. Candace speaks openly about growing up on Chicago’s South Side, witnessing addiction, loss, and trauma within her family, and how writing became her earliest and most honest form of self-expression through journaling and poetry.

The conversation then turns to her newest poetry collection, a deeply personal work shaped by love, grief, resilience, and self-discovery. Candace shares the significance of writing much of the book during an intense creative period, and she also discusses the experience of self-publishing the collection and the pride she feels in releasing a book rooted in lived truth rather than polished performance.

This episode is a thoughtful conversation about identity, growth, and the long journey from learning how to be seen to learning how to speak — honestly and on one’s own terms.

Contact Candace:
Instagram: @chosenpoetic Website: candacegreen.net

Recorded Spoken Word Performances Featured Include:

Porsha O – Trigger
Instagram: @iamporsheolayiwola Website: porshaolayiwola

William Evans – For My Wife Who Fell In Love With A Ship Buried At Sea
Instagram: @williamevanswrites Website: williamthe3rd.com

Ephriam Nehemiah – Inheritance of a Broken Home
Instagram: @ephriamnehemiah

Alyesha Wise: Untitled: To Black Women
Instagram: @alyeshawise Website: alyeshawise.com

Kenneth Something: Rape Poem
Instagram: @saysomethingpoet

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