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!

Jeffrey Yang in Conversation With John Beer

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Situated in the outreaches of southwest Texas, the town of Marfa has long been an oasis for artists, immigrants looking for work, and ranchers, while the ghosts of the indigenous and the borders between languages and nations are apparent everywhere. PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award-winning poet and translator Jeffrey Yang experienced the vastness of desert, township, sky, and time itself as a profound clash of dislocation and familiarity. Yang’s Hey, Marfa (Graywolf) is a fascinating, multifaceted work – an anti-travel guide, an anti-Western, a book of last words – that is a lyrical, anthropological investigation into history, culture, and extremity of place. Yang will be joined in conversation by poet John Beer, author of Lucinda. Preorder a signed edition of Hey, Marfa: Poems

Free

Marathon reading of Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day

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

Bernadette Mayer's Midwinter Day is an "epic poem about a daily routine" (Alice Notley) written in a single day on the winter solstice in 1978 in Lenox, Massachusetts. On the 40th anniversary of its composition, we'll read the whole book aloud. Listeners are welcome to come and go at will, or stay for the full reading which should take about three hours. Similar events are scheduled around the country on the same day; for a full listing see Becca Klaver's Midwinter Day at 40 page. The readers (in approximate order of appearance) are David Abel, Sam Lohmann, Jen Coleman, Linda Austin, John Beer, Marilyn Stablein, Laura Feldman, Tom DeBeauchamp, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Jesse Morse, Jen Denrow, Bronwen Tate, Emily Kendal Frey, Rodney Koeneke, Seann McCollum,…

Free

A Marathon Reading of Robert Duncan’s ‘Ground Work’

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

Each winter, the Spare Room reading series hosts a marathon reading of a long work. This year, we are observing the centenary of Robert Duncan (1919–1988), a central figure of Bay Area poetry associated with the Berkeley Renaissance and Black Mountain groups. We'll read Duncan's last two collections, Ground Work: Before the War (1984) and Ground Work: In the Dark (1988), which together form a single work, reprinted in a single volume by New Directions in 2006. The reading is free; come and go as you please or stay for the whole thing! There will be a beverage table (BYO and sharing encouraged). More about Robert Duncan: Michael Palmer's preface to Ground Work (2006) Audio from Duncan's readings and lectures on PennSound Readers, in approximate…

Free

AWP 2019 // Wave Books at the IPRC

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

Come out to one of Portland's coolest literary spaces, the Independent Publishing Resource Center, and help us make an edition and learn how to sew a simple booklet. Then, in the evening, join us for a celebratory reading by Wave poets. Readers will include: Aaron Kunin, Danielle Dutton, Dorothea Lasky, Joshua Beckman, Magdalena Zurawski, Michael Earl Craig, Prageeta Sharma, Rachel Zucker, Rodney Koeneke, Richard Meier, Tyehimba Jess, Matthew Zapruder, John Beer, Alejandro de Acosta, and Dara Wier. The book-sewing will go from 2–5PM; the reading will go from 5–11PM.

Free

The Green Lantern Press and Kenning Editions Showcase

Yale Union 800 SE 10th Ave, Portland, OR, United States

John Beer, Adam Novy, Laura Elrick, Devin King, Joel Craig, Rachel Galvin, Lara Schoorl, John Pluecker, and Jessica Anne Gratis wine provided by Montinore Estate

Free

Bookseller’s Ball

Star Theater 13 NW 6th Ave, Portland, OR, United States

A raucous party featuring visiting writers with new books from national independent presses (McSweeney’s, Third Man Books, Wave Poetry, and others), along with beloved local authors and popular NW bands (Power of County, The Savage Family Band, Ex-Kids, Morgan and the Organ Donors, and Bergerette). Come celebrate the last night of AWP 2019 at Portland’s historic Star Theater: Saturday, March 30, 5pm-2am, and dance the night away with DJ Cecilia after our roster of readers, rock and shenanigans have properly entertained you. For the complete list of performers, sponsors and stage times, please check: www.motherfoucaultsbookshop.com Doors at 5pm Full Schedule: 5pm Doors. DJ. 5:30 band: Power of Country 6:00 readers: Adèle Barclay, Cari Luna, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Jaswinder Bolina, Casandra Lopez 7pm Bookseller’s Ball. 7:00…

Free

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…

Free