LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!

Verselandia! 2023

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Youth Poetry Slam Championship Celebrate Portland’s youth poets during Literary Arts’ annual Verselandia! Youth Poetry Slam Championship. Cheer on students from Portland and East Multnomah County public high schools competing for poetic glory at this energetic and inspiring event. Support provided by: To support this event as a sponsor, please contact Lydah DeBin at lydah@literary-arts.org or call 503-989-7110.  

$10 – $70

Endi Bogue Hartigan & Flávia Rocha in Conversation

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Join us in celebration of the launch of oh orchid o’clock (Omnidawn Publishing, 2023) by Endi Bogue Hartigan who will introduce her new collection. She will be joined by Brazilian poet Flávia Rocha, who will read from her most recent book Exosfera. Enjoy an evening of lyric investigations into space, time, our time, and orchids, followed by a short discussion and Q&A. This collection speaks the language of the clock as a living instrument, exposing the sensory impacts of our obsession with time. In oh orchid o’clock, lyrics wind through histories like a nervous system through a body. The poems speak to how we let our days become over-clocked, over-transactional, and over-weaponed. With an instrumental sensibility, Endi Bogue Hartigan investigates what it is to be…

Free

Spare Room Annual Marathon Reading: Gertrude Stein & Jackson Mac Low

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Spare Room and Passages Bookshop present a marathon reading IDA  by  Gertrude Stein Pieces o’ Six  by  Jackson Mac Low Sunday, April 30 12:00 pm until finish (probably around 8:00-8:30 pm) Admission free Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660 Portland, OR 97209 503-388-7665 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = The Spare Room Reading Series hosts an annual marathon reading, in which local writers, artists, and friends read aloud one or more booklength texts. This year's marathon features Gertrude Stein's short novel Ida (1945) and Jackson Mac Low's thirty-three "poems in prose"…

Free

WORKS ON PAPER: EXPERIMENTS IN LANGUAGE & SOUND PRESENTS MARK SO

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Works on Paper: Experiments in Language and Sound presents an evening of tapes, readings, and text-objects by MARK SO Saturday, May 6 4:00 pm – 10:00 pm, come and go as you wish $10-20 suggested donation; no one turned away Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660 503-388-7665 ======================================= A six-hour multichannel playback of So’s experimental taped through-reading of John Ashbery's booklength poem Flow Chart provides a lively scrim for several discrete but related nucleii of his work to appear and coincide: • a group of his Ashbery scores which composer Manfred Werder performed for a month at a time, marked only by his sparse overtyping and occasional polaroids • several typescripts from late in the Ashbery series, no longer scores but radical transcriptions of…

Free – $20

Slamlandia

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. This event takes place in-person. Proof of Covid-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test is required for admittance. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. Julia Gaskill Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her poetry examines the tightrope we sometimes walk of feeling our voices censored and also being unabashedly ourselves. Her poems touch on everyday…

Free

Constellation #5: Ajose-Fisher, Mayer, Minto

Tin House 2617 NW Thurman Street, Portland, OR, United States

April's event was a stunner, and we're thrilled to announce a stellar local lineup for our fifth Constellation on May18th, along with some exciting changes. Changes first: the reading space has been transformed into a beautiful independent bookstore! Bishop & Wilde will be open before the event. Feel free to arrive early and shop. And now, this month's readers: Kesha Ajose-Fisher (she/her) is the author of the award-winning collection of stories, No God Like the Mother, which focuses on the lives and realities of women who have been tasked with holding up the sky, all while the world whispers “you’re doing it wrong.” She has also earned a number of prestigious awards for other essays and stories she has written over the years, including The…

Free

Submission Deadline: Old Pal Mag: Issue 7

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Old Pal is currently open for submissions until May 20, 2023! We publish poetry, fiction, criticism, excerpts, audio, mixed media, and various mediums of art. We encourage artists from all experience levels and communities to submit. Contributors are compensated $50 upon publication. We ask that submissions are limited as follows: Up to 10 pages of poetry Up to 15 pages of prose Up to 10 images or visual artworks Up to five minutes of audio or video Simultaneous submissions are welcome; we just ask that you notify us to withdraw works if accepted elsewhere. We do not accept previously published work; however, works previously posted to social media will still be considered. There is no submission fee or subscription required to submit. All rights revert…

Free

Works on Paper: MALEDETTO by KENNETH GABURO, performed by Evergreen Experimental Music Ensemble

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Works on Paper: Experiments in Language and Sound presents EVERGREEN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC ENSEMBLE in a performance of MALEDETTO by KENNETH GABURO Saturday, May 20 7:30 pm (doors open at 7:00) No late entry $10-20 suggested donation; no one turned awayPassages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660 503-388-7665   ======================================= Works on Paper is excited to present the Evergreen Experimental Music Ensemble in Kenneth Gaburo's linguistic-musical tour de force Maledetto.============================================ Kenneth Gaburo's Maledetto, a landmark work of experimental music from the composer's LINGUA project, exemplifies Gaburo's practice of Compositional Linguistics (i.e., language as music, and music as language). Arun Chandra, who has led multiple performances of the work over the years and serves as musical director for the Evergreen Experimental Music Ensemble, provides the following analysis:…

Free – $20

Jewish Poetry Book Club at EJC

Eastside Jewish Commons 2420 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland, OR, United States

Love to read poetry? Drawn to Jewish poets writing in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish in translation? Let's lift the poetry off the page with some communal meaning-making. Jion us on some first Wednesdays 12:30 - 2 PM at the Eastside Jewish Commons, 2420 NE Sandy. June 7, 2023 September 6, 2023 December 6, 2023 Bring copies of two poems by your favorite Jewish poet to read together on June 7th. From there we will assemble and vote on which poets' books to read for the year. Bring your lunch. Please plan on making a small donation to EJC each time we meet. $3 - $10 is suggested. No one turned away for lack of funds. Under the instigation but not tutelage of Betsy Fogelman Tighe.…

$3 – $10

Slamlandia

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. This event takes place in-person. Proof of Covid-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test is required for admittance. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. Julia Gaskill Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her poetry examines the tightrope we sometimes walk of feeling our voices censored and also being unabashedly ourselves. Her poems touch on everyday…

Free