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!

The People’s Poets (Open Mic)

Woodlawn MIC 1425 NE Dekum St, Portland, OR, United States

We are back!!! We call ourselves "The People's Poets" because our goal is to amplify voices of color while providing a safe place for displaced communities in Portland. While we welcome and encourage everyone to attend and support, we exclusively reserve the open mic as a platform for writers of color! 2$ suggested donation. Light refreshments provided. About Blacque Butterfly Darlene Solomon-Rogers aka Blacque Butterfly is a spoken word artist, singer, songwriter, entertainer and activist. Her love for the arts has allowed her to explore several layers of her calling. Be it spoken word, motivational speaking, singing, theater or event planning or promoting she has allowed the Creator to use her ministry to inspire others to follow their calling. Blacque Butterfly is a native Oregonian,…

Free – $2

Corporeal Writing Online – Soma & Sense w/ Brigid Yuknavitch: 4/28/19

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

STARTS: 4/28/19 WHERE: Online, for 6-weeks LEADER: Brigid Yuknavitch COST: $350 Soma and Sense These experiments are in writing process. Each follows symbols you encounter through your sensing body. Somatic experiences hold imagery and stories. We all have different modalities that are strongest in our imaginations and psyches. Our individual and collective poetics can show up in the ways we dream. One sense may be stronger for you than another, like smell or taste, and carry your memory and imagination far (as Marcel Proust explored). Some senses are earlier than others like smell and hearing. Shamans journey and experience extraordinary reality in different sensory modalities. Some people hear a voice to write, and others find their process in images, or rhythms. And, working in more…

$350

Poetry Month Party!

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

Join us to celebrate National Poetry Month! We will be partying to honor all the writing we've done this month and all the writing we have yet to do! This will be an informal gathering with pot-lucking, open-micing, writing games and other social to semi-social activities. Bring your poetry, your pens and your snacks (labeled for ingredients please!) Our friends at De-Canon: A Visibility Project are allowing us to use their beautiful space which is ADA accessible. If you need other accommodations to attend the event, please reach out to PDX Poetry Fest and we will do our best to help. Be sure to go to address: 8155 NE Oregon St, Portland, OR 97213. That’s the De-Canon entrance door to get in (not the Milepost…

Free

Poetry Slam and Open Mic feat. Bella

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 Bella! More about 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! Her poetry centers around her experiences being a woman of color, abusive relationships, her eating disorder, and the hope in between it all. She likes breakfast for lunch or dinner because she is a rebel. She has also always wanted to feature at Portland Poetry Slam so woooooo!! We will be at our venue, Tiny's Coffee Northeast! This means our show is all-ages! Everyone is…

Free – $5

The Work Poetry Workshop: Monday Night Edition

Angst Gallery 1015 Main St, Vancouver, WA, United States

Join us on Monday, April 15 and 29 for The Work, a poetry writing workshop at Angst Gallery led by Christopher Luna. “Well, while I’m here I’ll do the work — and what’s the work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow.” ― Allen Ginsberg, “Memory Gardens” (Fall of America, City Lights) The Work is a drop-in poetry writing workshop for beginners as well as more experienced writers. Poetry encourages empathy and compassion, and sparks the shifts in consciousness which can lead to healing, personal growth, and an interest in fighting for progressive social change. The Monday Night Edition of The Work takes place at Angst Gallery (1015 Main Street, Vancouver) from 6-8:30 pm on the second and fourth Monday of each…

Free – $20

Lewis & Clark Senior Student Poetry Reading

Lewis & Clark - Frank Manor House 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, Portland, OR, United States

Please join the English department for an evening of readings of original works of poetry by senior students from Mary Szybist’s Advanced Poetry Writing course. Refreshments will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there!

Free

The Poet’s Toolkit Part 3: Sense – Kate Gray

Another Read Through 3932 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR, United States

During poetry month, honor your tender and fierce heart. Add tools to your poetry toolkit. You’ll start with sound, how your words can change your reader’s body. No experience necessary. You’ll write and share in a tremendously safe environment, using the Gateless Method. This workshop will give you practical ways to distinguish this writing form from others, practice in applying the tool, and the light to show you how brilliantly you shine. Part 1 of 3: Sound (Monday, April 15th, 6-8pm) Part 2 of 3: Shape (Tuesday, April 23, 6-8pm) Part 3 of 3: Sense All sessions will be held in the loft at Another Read Through. Register for each part a la carte on a sliding scale ($60-80), or for all three at a…

Free

Slamlandia May Guilder Slam

Guilder Cafe 2393 NE Fremont St., Portland, OR, United States

Join us for our MAY Poetry Open Mic and Slam at Guilder on May 2nd! Doors and sign-ups are at 6:00 PM Get there on time to get a spot in the open mic or slam! Show begins at 6:30 PM. Guilder 2393 NE Fremont St Portland, OR 97213 This show is all ages. Please see our Accessibility and Safer Space info below. There is a $1-5 suggested donation. We will not be having a featured poet at this time. ★ •*´¨`*• O P E N • M I C •*´¨`*• ★ The open mic will start the show out. The open mic is a great way to share your wonderful poetry! You can share 1-2 poems lasting a maximum of 3 minutes. ★ •*´¨`*•…

Free – $5

Chapbook launch: obsequies by manuel arturo abreu

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

Join us on May 2 at 7 pm to celebrate the launch of manuel arturo abreu’s new chapbook, obsequies. Reading alongside abreu are Laura Camila Medina and Bogosi Sekhukhuni. abreu will also play some piano.  Laura Camila Medina is an interdisciplinary artist born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in Orlando, FL. She bases her practice around uprooting and migration as a response to personal, cultural, and historical research. Medina is constantly inspired by her memories of home, her mother’s arepas, and her father’s soundtracks. She earned a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and is currently based in Portland, OR. Bogosi Sekhukhuni (b. 1991, Johannesburg) describes himself as a ‘lightworker’. He studied at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He has exhibited at…

Free

Spare Room reading: Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Phoebe Wayne, & Trevino Brings Plenty

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

Trevino L. Brings Plenty is a poet and musician who lives, works, and writes in Portland, OR. He is singer/songwriter/guitarist for the musical ensemble Ballads of Larry Drake. He has read/performed his work at poetry festivals as far away as Amman, Jordan and close to his home base at Portland's Wordstock Festival. In college, Trevino worked with Primus St. John and Henry Carlile for this poetry work, studied with Tomas Svoboda for music composition, and Jerry Hahn for Jazz guitar. Trevino is an American and Native American; a Lakota Indian born on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota, USA. Some of his work explores the American Indian identity in American culture and how it has through genealogical history affected indigenous peoples in the 21st…

Free – $5