Thursday, June 23, 7:30 PM

Greenlight Summer Open Mic Series

Hosted by Angel Nafis

Featuring poets Michael Cirelli & Eboni Hogan of Penmanship Books

In the spirit of bringing together the worlds of written literature and spoken word performance, Greenlight is excited to host a new monthly open mic series from May to August. Hosted by Greenlight’s own Angel Nafis, a nationally recognized young performer and poet, the series will offer the opportunity for local poets and performers to bring their work to the microphone, and each evening will conclude with a featured performance by some of the most highly acclaimed stage poets in the New York scene.  Open mic participants should arrive at 7 PM to sign up for a reading slot; readings must be no more than three minutes. Wine will be served.

In June, the series features two poets published by Penmanship Press: Michael Cirelli, who has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and Brave New Voices and is the author of Vacations on the Black Star Line and New York Timesbestseller Lobster with Ol’ Dirty Bastard, as well as a new collection Everyone Loves The Situation, which deconstructs Jersey Shore; and Eboni Hogan, a champion of both the Women of the World and Urbana Grand Slam competitions and a poet published in numerous anthologies as well as her own debut collectionGrits.  

Click here to RSVP on Facebook

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Friday, June 24, 7:30 PM

Face Out!: A Book Launch Celebrating Independent Presses and Their Authors

Featuring Paul Foster Johnson, author of

Study in Pavilions and Safe Rooms

(Portable Press)

Jeffrey Jullich, author of Portrait of Colon Dash Parenthesis (Litmus Press)

Rachel Levitsky, author of The Story of My Accident is Ours (futurepoem)

Elizabeth Streb, author of How to Become an Extreme Action Hero (Feminist Press)

Karen Weiser, author of To Light Out (Ugly Duckling Presse; reading by Anna Moschavakis)

Reception to follow

Independent publishers are on the front lines of discovering new talents in and voices in the literary world, and Greenlight is proud to feature several of the best and brightest for this evening of readings and performance. The featured authors and their publishers have taken part in “Face Out: Maximizing the Visibility of Emerging Writers”, a technical assistance and regrant program of The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, made possible through funds provided by the Jerome Foundation with additional support from The New York Community Trust. Ranging from a memoir of dance activism to letterpress chapbook poetry, from exploration of spatial meanings in architecture to poetry as visual performance, these new works aim to amaze and challenge, and their authors present their work in various forms this evening. A wine and cheese reception will follow the presentations.

Click here for book buying information

Click here to RSVP on Facebook

About twice a moth, louderARTS holds a poetry slam at Bar 13. That means we pick 5 random people from the audience and ask them to give scores to poetry.

The sign up list goes out at 7pm and the first 8 names on the list get to read that evening.

Poems must be original works and use not props, costumes, or musical accompaniment.

You have a 3 minute time limit with a 10 second grace period. run over time and points will be deducted from your score. Learn more about the rules here. Learn more about why we play this crazy game with poems here. And learn how this year will be different over here.

Greenlight Summer Open Mic Series

Hosted by Angel Nafis

Featuring poets Jon Sands, Jeanann Verlee, and Taylor Mali from Writebloody Publishing

Thursday, May 26, 7:30 PM
Greenlight Summer Open Mic Series
Hosted by Angel Nafis
Featuring poets Jon Sands, Jeanann Verlee, and Taylor Mali from Writebloody Publishing

…In the spirit of bringing together the worlds of written literature and spoken word performance, Greenlight Bookstore is excited to host a new monthly open mic series from May to August. Hosted by Greenlight’s own Angel Nafis, a nationally recognized performer and poet, the series will offer the opportunity for local poets and performers to bring their work to the microphone, and each evening will conclude with a featured performance by some of the most highly acclaimed stage poets in the New York scene.

In May, the series features three poets published by Writebloody Publishing:

Jon Sands! author of The New Clean, a professional artist and performer who has represented New York City multiple times at the National Poetry Slam;

Taylor Mali! author of The Last Time As We Are, director of the New Teacher Project and creator of Teacher! Teacher! an award-winning one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math;

and Jeanann Verlee! author of Racing Hummingbirds and a former punk rocker whose work has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies. Open mic participants should arrive at 7 PM to sign up for a reading slot; readings must be no more than three minutes. Wine will be served.

Click here for book buying information 

carlovely:

kipp rusty walker, a very troubled 19 year old, stabbed himself to death with a six inch blade, on stage, at an open mic after playing a song called sorry for all the mess.

the audience tragically was under the impression that it was a performance piece, and clapped and cheered as the young musician ended his life right there in front of everyone.

yikes. read the whole story here.

I think creative types need more community and support, because god knows at one point this could have been me. I personally am here to support, help, and listen to anyone who may be going through hard times. I’ve been through a lot and I did it mostly alone, but you don’t need to. We all don’t need to.