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!

Poetry

  1. Events
  2. Poetry

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

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…

Continue readingPoetry Reading: Tess Gallagher and Paulann Petersen
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…

Continue readingWordlights: Saturday Poetry Evenings
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–…

Continue readingPoetry: Walter Moore, David Turkel & Jesse Donaldson
Free

Poetry Slam and Open Mic feat. Sage Lilac

Tiny's Coffee - NE MLK Jr 2031 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for another amazing poetry slam and open mic!!! There is a 5 dollar suggested donation for this event but no one is turned away. We will have a feature from Sage Lilac! More about Sage: Sage Lilac is a trans poet and heavy metal vocalist based out of Portland, OR. She got her start in poetry just after high school by winning both the SpeakNOW Poetry Slam in 2012 and then the Rising Star Creative Writing Competition in 2013. Since then, she has lead many after school programs and in-school residencies through the Nature of Words literary center, shared the stage with renowned performance poet Buddy Wakefield, has had her poems arranged for performance by opera singers, been a PDX Grand Slam finalist…

Continue readingPoetry Slam and Open Mic feat. Sage Lilac
Free – $5

Poetry Practice Space

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

Poetry Practice Space is a monthly gathering for poets and writers. Writing materials, readings and prompts for generative writing will be provided. Come share a space to talk about your writing practice, and current writing projects, bemoan rejections, celebrate acceptances, share writing resources— and write together! Consider Poetry Practice Space the calisthenics for your poetics. Suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds Free for members

Free

QUEER PDXpression

Crush Bar 1400 Southeast Morrison Street, Portland, OR, United States

Please join us on May 30th at Crush Bar. Sign ups 6:30 pm Show 7:00 pm $5 dollar suggested donation. All proceeds go towards Bryony Blazes chap book. We are honored to have two features. Xesxa Depentes is a poet and performer living in Portland, OR. it’s the author of the chapbook crying in the sun (txt books, 2017). its work has been published in the recluse, the poetry project newsletter and on the poetry foundation’s harriet blog. Trenna Sharpe is a poet from Tennessee, currently living and writing in Portland, Oregon. Her poems appear in the The Heart's Many Doors, The Tangerine, 5:2:One Magazine, Industrial Lunch, Poetry Miscellany, Incessant Pipe, and The Lifeboat. She's a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Program for…

Continue readingQUEER PDXpression
Free – $5

Nights Since Chapbook Release

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

The first volume of Nights Since chapbooks has arrived. Join me on Friday, May 31st for a reading from this book and general hoopla of poetry. More details to come. If you ordered a book, you could pick up your copy in person.

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 June 1st, we'll have a feature from Jane Belinda and a long set poetry open mic! OUR FEATURE: Jane Belinda is a queer jewish poet from Portland, Oregon. They are the Slammaster of Portland Poetry Slam! They write on subjects of grief, queerness, gender, and jewish identity. They have competed nationally at the Individual World Poetry Slam and was on finals stage at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Dallas in 2017. *** Sign-ups start at 5:30, show starts at 6PM. On first and third Saturdays each performer in the open mic gets 10 minutes, there are only 8 slots available and the list order…

Continue readingWordlights: Saturday Poetry Evenings
Free

Reading: Casandra Lopez, Sam Roxas-Chua, John Sibley Williams

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

Join Mother Focault’s for the Portland book launch of Casandra Lopez’s powerful new collection Brother Bullet, just released from University of Arizona Press. Joining her will be Oregon poets Sam Roxas-Chua and John Sibley Williams. Casandra Lopez is a Chicana and California Indian (Cahuilla/Tongva/Luiseño) writer who’s received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf and Jackstraw. She’s been selected for residencies with the School of Advanced Research and Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, Where Bullet Breaks, was published by the Sequoyah National Research Center and her poetry collection, Brother Bullet, was just released from University of Arizona. She’s a founding editor of As/Us: A Space For Women Of The World and teaches at Northwest Indian College. https://casandramlopez.com/ Sam Roxas-Chua is a poet and multi-disciplinary artist from Eugene, Oregon. His…

Continue readingReading: Casandra Lopez, Sam Roxas-Chua, John Sibley Williams
Free
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.