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Comedy vs. Tragedy #15

Cider Riot 807 NE Couch St, Portland, OR, United States

Three musicians vs. three poets vs. three comedians! - the audience picks the winners! Plus a featured performance and a raffle! ************************************************** PRICE OF TICKETS $10 online with an advanced purchase or $15 at the door. Get yours now at WWW.NOVAPDX.ORG ************************************************** ROUND ONE – NINE PERFORMERS Three poets will perform one piece in their round. Then the audience will select their favorite performance by applause and that poet will advance to the final round. Then three comedians will perform and the audience will select one to advance. Then three musicians will perform and the audience will select one of them to join the poet and the comedian in the final round. FEATURE PERFORMANCE - Trill LeBeau of Cosmic Serenity SPECIAL GUEST: A Strange Bird…

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$10 – $15

STRAY Record Release Party

Nationale 3360 SE Division, Portland, OR, United States

Saturday, May 18, 3pm at NATIONALE, Fonograf Editions presents a record release celebration for Shannon Ebner’s STRAY: A Graphic Tone. Ebner’s project collates poems by Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey, exploring the experiments and politics of poetic form. Portland poets John Beer and Endi Bogue Hartigan will each read from Howe’s and/or Mackey’s works as well as from their own. Additional reader(s) TBA. Nationale (est. 2008) is an art space dedicated to the promotion of culture through exhibitions, performances, and a small selection of various publications. Located at 3360 SE Division, Portland, OR. John Beer is the author of Lucinda & The Waste Land and Other Poems, and the editor of Poems (1962-1997) by Robert Lax. He teaches at Portland State University. Endi Bogue Hartigan…

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Free

Wordlights: Saturday Poetry Evenings

Rocking Frog Cafe 2511 SE Belmont St, Portland, OR, United States

Wordlights Saturday poetry evenings presented by Nova PDX, Rocking Frog Cafe and hosted by Igor Brezhnev. On Saturday May 18th, we'll have a feature from Julia Gaskill and a long set poetry open mic! OUR FEATURE: Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. When she’s not hosting Slamlandia, she can be found performing on the Portland Poetry Slam stage, exploring the Pacific Northwest, or walking your dog. Julia has competed in IWPS, WOWPS, and NPS throughout 2016 - 2018, and she was the Portland Poetry Slam rep at WOWPS 2018 in Dallas, TX. Her work has been featured on FreezeRay Poetry, Ink&Nebula, Slam Find, Write About Now, Rising Phoenix Review, and Voicemail Poems. It goes without saying that she loves Muppets more…

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Free

Tess Gallagher in Conversation With Greg Simon & Danielle Vermette

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

Tess Gallagher’s new poems are suspended between contradiction and beauty. Is, Is Not (Graywolf) upends our notions of linear time, evokes the spirit and sanctity of place, and hovers daringly at the threshold of what language can nearly deliver while offering alternative corollaries as gifts of its failures. Gallagher will be joined in conversation by poet Greg Simon and writer Danielle Vermette.

Free

Reading with Jason Christie and jayy dodd

The Stacks Coffeehouse 1831 N. Killingsworth St, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for an evening of poetry with Jason Christie and jayy dodd. What happens to identity when we're obsessed with self-surveillance and devalued words? Now that we've sold ourselves to ourselves, shuffling letters and sounds around to hide the pain, how do we represent the uncanny valley in which we've set up shop? In lèse-majesté, Jason Christie recoils in horror at the thoroughness of his self, then begins to write toward a new understanding brokered between all the things that define him and who he thinks he should be and interrogates how we reduce people to words, especially online, turning them into objects. Jason Christie is the author of Canada Post, i-ROBOT, Unknown Actor, and a coeditor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry.…

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Free

Shane Koyczan – Spoken Word Artist with special guest Micah Fletcher

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St, Portland, OR, United States

In a realm where poets rarely intersect with stardom, the Opening Ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics introduced us to Shane Koyczan. With a collective “Wow!” we found the poet of our generation, and we weren’t even looking for one. The world took notice when Shane’s influential, anti-bullying, To This Day Project video went viral in early 2013 with over 14 million views and counting. Powerfully engaging and authentic in attitude, his explorations are relevant to our times in the way that Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen are to theirs. But unlike the musicians that he’s often compared to, poets rarely infiltrate pop culture. Koyzcan emerges in a new wave of 21st century poetry that dares to belong to the people and speak…

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$20 – $25

Poetry Reading: Tess Gallagher and Paulann Petersen

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes two wonderful poets, Tess Gallagher and Paulann Petersen, for a joint reading from their latest collections. Tess Gallagher's new collection, Is, Is Not, upends our notions of linear time, evokes the spirit and sanctity of place, and hovers daringly at the threshold of what language can nearly deliver while offering alternative corollaries as gifts of its failures. Tess Gallagher’s poems reverberate with the inward clarity of a bell struck on a mountaintop. Guided by humor, grace, and a deep inquiry into the natural world, every poem nudges us toward moments of awe. How else except by delight and velocity would we discover the miracle within the ordinary? Gallagher claims many Wests—the Northwest of America, the Northwest of Ireland, and a West even…

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Free

Objection! Poetry Slam 2019

Lagunitas Community Room 237 NE Broadway St #300, Portland, OR, United States

The YLS Service to the Public Committee, in association with Literary Arts, invites you to the Second Annual Objection! Poetry Slam. The theme is "Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society" and the event is open to participants ages 13-22 who would like to perform a poem expressing their views. The local and talented Alex Dang will be emceeing the slam and hosting a creative writing workshop at the beginning of the event. And there will be free food, beverages, and cash prizes! Attendance is free, no RSVP required. We hope you join us for a night of creative thought and performance. Details and rules at https://mbabar.org/calendar/2019-05-24/objection-poetry-slam-2019.html

Free

Wordlights: Saturday Poetry Evenings

Rocking Frog Cafe 2511 SE Belmont St, Portland, OR, United States

Wordlights Saturday poetry evenings presented by Nova PDX, Rocking Frog Cafe and hosted by Igor Brezhnev. On Saturday May 25th, we'll have a feature from Bella, two mini features from Bri G & Nastashia Minto, and a short set poetry open mic! OUR FEATURE: Bella Bella is Southern California grown, and found herself in Portland after a few things went wrong, (or completely right if you ask her now). She began writing poetry in 2017 after watching a slam performance that was supposed to inspire her not to give up after almost getting evicted out of her apartment (she didn’t get evicted, so the inspiration worked). The first time she performed was in 2018, at Portland Poetry Slam. Her poetry centers around her experiences being…

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Free

Poetry: Walter Moore, David Turkel & Jesse Donaldson

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR, United States

Join us on May 25 at 7 pm to hear fresh work from three Oregon writers. Jesse Donaldson was born and raised in Kentucky, educated in Texas, and now lives in Oregon. He is the author of The More They Disappear and On Homesickness. David Turkel is a playwright, screenwriter and poet based in Corvallis, Oregon. His plays have been produced in abandoned chruches (Wild Signs), repurposed breweries (Holler), textile mills (Stroke/Book), lofts (F.O.R.D.), storefronts (Key to the Field, Crimson and Clover) and even the occasional theater (Nadia, ‘ratio). He was a founding member of Chapel Hill’s Somnabulist Project and Pittsburgh’s Bricolage Theatre companies. His play Clytemnestr@pocalypse premiered at the Théâtre National de Nice, France, March 2017. His newest, (ha)— a cabaret performance starring Eva Braun in Purgatory–…

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Free
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