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!

Last Day for Exhibit: NIEDECKER PANELS by KATHERINE KUEHN

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

Katherine Kuehn’s gorgeous wall hangings present short poems by the incomparable Lorine Niedecker, sewn onto vintage textiles hand-dyed in indigo. The Niedecker panels are accompanied by two other sewn projects featuring texts by David Abel (Threnos) and Henry David Thoreau (Winter Lines). Printer, printmaker, and book artist Katherine Kuehn has been sewing texts for many years, making innovative objects that transform the act of reading. “After twenty-five years of setting type by hand,” she once remarked, “I wanted something slower.” The works in the exhibition can be seen during regular shop hours (Thursday through Saturday, 12:00-6:00 pm), as well as by appointment other days and times.

Free

Monthly Poetry Gathering w John Morrison | Second Saturdays | Sep – Jan

Attic Institute 4232 SE Hawthorne, Portland, OR, United States

"If I write, the dark shadows move away from my desk." ~ Donald Murray Here’s a workshop that can flow with the longer rhythms of your writing. A Saturday afternoon of each month, we’ll gather and share one or two poems in a comfortable but focused fashion. You choose the poem to share based on what feedback you are looking for; the poems could range from ones you want ready to submit for publication, to experimental pieces that need a supportive but critical eye. Along the way we’ll talk about craft and how to grow and sustain a fulfilling practice. Come ready to share your poems and insights and to carry generous feedback home to your writing desk. | Maximum: 9 writers Register for this workshop Teacher:…

$210 – $237

Wordlights Poetry ft. Bri Gowdy & Kate Leddy

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

Wordlights Saturday poetry evenings presented by NovaPDX, Rocking Frog Cafe and hosted by Igor Brezhnev. On Saturday, September 14th, we are welcoming Bri Gowdy & Kate Leddy back from their tour! Of course, there will be a short set poetry open mic as well! OUR FEATURE: Bri Gowdy Bri Gowdy is a poet from Portland Oregon. In January she was published in The Rising Phoenix Review. Her chapbook There is Room for You Here, ( that is undoubtedly a Scorpio) covers topics such as self love, friendship and god stuff. Bri is most inspired when she is working with youth poets, or leading workshops. Bri above all is thankful to her community and believes deeply in accessible art. Bri spends much of her time organizing…

Free

Fall 2019: Contents Under Pressure: Experiments in Poetic Form

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

What happens when someone puts severe restrictions on the way you write? What if Edgar Allen Poe wanted to write “The Raven,” but couldn’t use the letter E? Participants will look at some poems created under these kinds of extreme constraints, and we’ll write to learn what happens when we accept such outrageous challenges. Jennifer Perrine is a 2019 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient. She is the author of three books of poetry: No Confession, No Mass; In the Human Zoo; and The Body Is No Machine. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Pleiades, Valparaiso Fiction Review and Salt Hill, and in the Broadsided Press folio “Bearing Arms: Responding to Guns in American Culture.” Her honors include the 2017 K. Margaret Grossman Fiction Award, the…

$135

Poetry Slam and Open Mic feat. Fitz and Danielle Ramsay

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!!! This slam is a qualifying slam for the Women of the World Poetry Slam Finals. There is a 5 dollar suggested donation for this event but no one is turned away. We will have a feature from Fitz and Danielle Ramsey! We will be at our venue, Tiny's Coffee Northeast! This means our show is all-ages! Everyone is welcome. We do not censor our mic except for instances of hate-speech. Please also note that we start a little earlier then at previous venues. Accessibility info: Tiny's is on the 6 bus line, which is a frequent service line. It is a quarter mile from the the streetcar line and about a half mile away from…

Free – $5

Writing the Poem Workshop w Ashley Toliver | Sep 16 – Oct 14

Attic Institute 4232 SE Hawthorne, Portland, OR, United States

What happens when we expand our creative focus and let go of our expectations? In this workshop, we'll use writing practices and generative techniques, explore poems and strategies, all with the goal of completing the workshop with a handful of new poems. Can we find liberation from the pressures we place on ourselves and our work? Join the experiment and let's find out! Maximum: 12 writers. Register for this workshop Teacher: Ashley Toliver Time: Mondays, Sep 16 - Oct 14, 5:30 - 7:30pm, 5 weeks Location: Attic Institute of Arts and Letters, 4232 SE Hawthorne Boulevard Total Fee: Early Registration and Tuition Deadline is seven (7) days prior to the start of the workshop. | Early Registration: $210 (cash/check); $222 (Paypal). | Late Registration: $225…

$210 – $237

Kate Gray and Armin Tolentino

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

We welcome poets Kate Gray and Armin Tolentino reading from their newest collections: For Every Girl (Widow and Orphan House) and We Meant to Bring it Home Alive (Alternating Current Press), respectively, at 7 pm on Tuesday, September 17th. For Every Girl is a love song to and celebration of the girl, the queer, the survivor in all of us. In these poems we find not only testimony to the resiliency of girls but an invitation to delight in the pure pleasure of their joy. The book features new and selected poems and includes a conversation between Gray and Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita Paulann Petersen. Frances Payne Adler, poet and founder of the Creative Writing and Social Action Program at CSU-Monterey Bay, says “I am…

Free

All Pinxy All Stars at Milepost 5

De-Canon Library / ArtHaus at Milepost 5 8155 NE Oregon St, Portland, OR, United States

Join the Portland-based celebration(s!!) for the launch of Michelle Peñaloza's FORMER POSSESSIONS OF THE SPANISH EMPIRE! Join us on September 18th for an evening with All Star Pinxy writers, Christopher Rose, Armin Tolentino, Janice Sapigao, Jake Vermaas along with Michelle, in APANO's De-Canon Library at Milepost 5. Portland- and Northern California- based poets will join forces to combine readings and karaoke into an extravaganza of entertainment and literary import! Doors open at 6:30pm, and readings/performances will begin promptly at 7:00pm! All are welcome and the event is free of charge.

Free

LEMON WORLD 10

Lone Fir Cemetery Southeast 26th Avenue and Southeast Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

A weekly poetry reading series that takes place in Lone Fir Cemetery. Lemon World 10 features poetry by Gary Gamza, Lu B, and Matthew Layng. Our last dance of the season is approaching! Bring a candle, bring an umbrella, bring a friend 🎺🌲🕷🍋 *Reading site is visible from the cemetery entrance on the Morrison side across from the Belmont Apartments*

Free

Mountain Writers: Poetry Revision Workshop with Lex Runciman

N/A

This poetry revision workshop assumes that to begin writing a poem is to initiate a unique process of curiosity and discovery, and that to complete a poem is to end that particular process. Thus, our workshop aim will be not to fix a draft or finish a poem -- though those things could happen. Rather our aim will be to intuit and explore the draft's materials, to understand its intentions (first without the writer's comment), and to identify and experiment with possible fruitful revision. Our aim will be to deep the writer's sense of possibility for that poem and become more aware of revision possibilities for other poems as well. Participants will distribute drafts to be discussed the following session. No beginners. No prompts. Meets: Thursdays,…

$300