The Operating System

NYC Readings Roundup :: June 17-23

Editor’s note: welcome to the 16th iteration of our new weekly series, the Readings Roundup…which you might notice is growing steadily! Sorry if I’m repeating myself to some of you but if this is your first time here it bears noting that itpop
’s long been a pipedream of ours to revive the NYC Poetry Calendar (started in 1977 by Bob Holman), to provide for the community here a true and cohesive overview of the vibrant scene that seems to birth a new event every day.
How does a poet new to New York or just new to the readings landscape figure out where to go, what these different events and organizations represent and offer?
We have a habit of biting off more than we can chew, so even though we have an overwhelmingly robust spreadsheet we’re working on making into an interactive page on the site, in future, we decided not to wait. In the meanwhile, we’ll start small — featuring in particular long running events and venues, making sure always to keep a healthy balance between styles and associations. We are judgement free and love filled, we’re just excited people are writing, reading, and sharing this important form. Come out!
– Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, Poetry/Managing Editor
 
FEATURED EVENTS:
Monday, June 17, 6:30-8:30pm | free admission
Reading: NoMAA 2013 Literary Grantees @ X Caffe
A reading by recipients of Northern Manhattan Art Alliance’s 2013 literary grants: Ellen Hagan, John Paul Infante, Danielle Lazarin, Sheila Maldonado, Sergio Reyes and Peggy Ann Tartt.
Q&A moderated by Veronica Liu of the Word Up Collective, on the occasion of Word Up’s second birthday.
Part of NoMAA’s Uptown Arts Stroll 2013.
Saturday, June 22nd, 12pm | free admission
Popsickle @ LaunchPad
Popsickle, now in its fourth year, is a literary festival that aims to unite Brooklyn’s array of reading series and mags into one day-long literary megareading.
PERFORMERS INCLUDE: Michael Robbins | Anthony Madrid | Paige Ackerson-Kiely | Dolan Morgan | Danniel Schoonebeek | Coriel Gaffney | Ben Nadler | Julia Guez | Rangi McNeil | Montana Ray | Jarrod Shanahan | Andy Gittlitz | Nicole Steinberg | Paul Simundich | Allyson Paty | Jacob Perkins | JD Scott | Christine Kanownik | Sasha Fletcher | Seth Oelbaum | Ana Božičević | Leigh Stein | Jennifer Tamayo | Ryan Strong | Hubert Vigilla | Carole Nicksin | Anna Moschovakis | Sarah V. Schweig | Elizabeth Zuba | Marisa Crawford & Becca Klaver & Lily Ladewig & Caolan Madden & Emily Skillings & Jennifer Tamayo | & more tba . . . .
PARTICIPATING SERIES INCLUDE: Bushwick Sweethearts | Hatchet Job | Renegade Reading Series |Fireside Follies | Moonshot | Vol. 1 Brooklyn | Highwaymen NYC | What’s So Hot | Death Panel | WONDER | Stain of Poetry | Atlas | Bratty Poets
Popsickle 2013 is coordinated by Niina Pollari and JD Scott.
For more information, email us at popsickle.festival@gmail.com.
MONDAY 6/17
6:30pm | $10; $7 for students/seniors; free for Poets House Members 
Bad News! i was there… by JoAnne Akalaitis @ Poets House
“A staged reading comprised of “messenger” speeches from classic plays, ranging from Euripides to Racine, in adaptations by distinguished translators. This new work by JoAnne Akalaitis explores this dramatic device, central to the structure of many great tragedies, invented by the Greeks around 520 B. C. Bad News! will be performed outdoors by a company of New York actors — Bill Camp, Karen Kandel, Joan MacIntosh, Elizabeth Marvel, Efthalia Papacosta, Rocco Sisto and Nora York — with accompanying music.” Doors open at 5:00pm
7-9pm | free admission
Poetry Reading @ KGB Bar
Jeffery Berg, MRB Chelko, Margarita Delcheva, Paul Hlaya and Dan Rosenberg will read from their most recent collections.

8-10pm | $3 donation requested
Saturn Series Poetry @ Revival Bar
Saturn Series Poetry is a writers’ open mic every Monday night. This is not a slam. Poets, playwrights, screenwriters and novelists perform prose, poetry and sometimes a song or two. Featuring Anoek and George Wallce. Sign up begins at 7:45.
TUESDAY 6/18
6pm | $10; $7 for students/seniors; free for Poets House Members
An Evening with Robert Polito @ Poets House
Poet, essayist, and biographer Robert Polito reads his poems dealing with the history of film and presents film clips from some of his favorite movies from film noir to foreign-language gems.
7pm | free admission
Virginia Quarterly Review @ KGB Bar
Richard Nash, Amy O’Leary and Kevin Young will read from their most recent collections.
7:30-11pm | $10
Organic Open Mic @ Bareburger (East Village)
Produced by the Inspired Word open mic series,  this open mic is open to all types of performing artists – comedians, musicians, storytellers, singers, poets, fiction/nonfiction writers, playwrights, spoken word artists, performance artists, dancers. Doors open for open mic sign-up @ 7pm.
WEDNESDAY 6/19
6pm | $10; $7 for students/seniors; free for Poets House Members
An Evening with Adélia Prado and Ellen Doré Watson @ Poets House
One of the foremost poets of Brazil, Adélia Prado is author of eight books of poetry, two of which have been translated into English. She was praised by Veja (Brazil’s Newsweek) as “a writer of rare brilliance and invincible simplicity.” Or, as Carlos Drummond de Andrade famously declared: “Adélia is lyrical, biblical, existential; she makes poetry as naturally as nature makes weather.” In this rare visit to New York, Prado will read poems with her English-language translator Ellen Doré Watson.
Part of the 2013 River to River Festival
7pm | free admission
Fantastic Fiction @ KGB Bar
Featuring fiction from Sarag Langan and Lawrence C. Connolly. Hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel
9pm | $7
Wednesday Night Slam Open @ The Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Open to the first 20 poets to sign up so arrive early if you want to slam. The night’s winner will eligible to perform in the Nuyorican’s famed Friday Night Poetry Slam. Hosted by Jive Poetic.
THURSDAY 6/20
7-9pm | free admission
Drunken! Careening! Writers! @ KGB Bar
A reading series that believes “readings should be 1) by good writers; 2) who read their work well; and 3) something in it makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts). And 15 minutes tops.” Featuring Regie Cabico, Jenifer Levin and Honor Molloy.
FRIDAY 6/21
7-9pm | free admission
2013 Kundiman Faculty and Fellow Readng @ Fordham Lincoln Center
Join Kundiman, an organization dedicated to the creation and cultivation of Asian American poetry,
for their 2013 Faculty and Fellows reading during Kundiman’s 10th Annual Poetry Retreat. Feautring Li-Young Lee, Srikanth Reddy and Lee Ann Roripaugh.
7-9pm | free admission
Feile-Festa 2013 @ KGB Bar
Feile-Festa is an online, literary arts journal that features poets and writers from all the regions of the United States, as well as Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. This multicultural journal includes photographs that evoke life primarily in New York City and sometimes Ireland and Italy. Tonight’s reading features Donald Dewey, Renzo Oliva and Frank Polizzi.
8:30-11pm | free admission
The MTK Open Mic Show @ The New York Hotel
Open-mic sign-up begins 7:30pm. ALL artists (poets/spoken word artists/musicians, singers, dancers) are welcome. Featuring J. P. Howard, Ed Toney, Q-Sol, Marcus John & Naa Akua and California’s Poetry Dancer
10pm | $10
Friday Night Slam @ The Nuyorican Poets Cafe
NYC’s first poetry slam was held at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 1989 and 20 years later it is still going strong. Watch poets perform and compete. Judges are 5 randomly chosen audience members.
SATURDAY 6/22

12-4pm | free admission
Writing On It All: Wendy S. Walters – Out of Regiment, a Project in Personal Mapping @Governor’s Island (Building 6b)
Witness Writing On It All is a giant collaborative writing experiment. Workshop description: Who protects us?  What does it means to “harbor”?  What ambitions are resolved by the idea of destination?  We will attempt to answer these questions by creating maps of safe spaces that engage key concepts associated with the history of Governor’s Island: isolation, defense, harbor, fortress, and sea.
This session is open to the public and requires registration.
7:30-8:45pm | two drink minimum
Lyrics, Lit & Liquor Celebrates Gay Pride! @ The Parkside Lounge
In celebration of LGBT pride month, Lyrics, Lit & Liquor! is hosting a special gay pride reading event. Hosted by Amanda Miller. Gay pride themed trivia by Amy Dupcak. Featuring fiction and non-fiction readings from Ed Kearns, Howard Weiner, Amy Dupcak, Amanda Miller, Jacob Siegel and Dan Foley. Music from Secret Cove.

SUNDAY 6/23
12-4pm | free admission
Writing On It All: Carla Gannis and Justin Petropolous – legend / legend @ Governor’s Island (Building 6b)
Witness Writing On It All is a giant collaborative writing experiment. Workshop description: <legend>  </ legend> is a site specific project that incorporates a collection of poems and drawings. We are exploring the relationship between constructed spaces in relation to historical contexts, and what it means to activate those spaces through interpretative transcription.
This session is open to the public and requires registration.
12-4pm | free admission
Writing On It All: Jovanina Pagano and Rachel Levitsky – Against the Wall: Migration / Habitation / Erasing / Tracing @ Governor’s Island (Building 6b)
Witness Writing On It All is a giant collaborative writing experiment. Workshop description: In this workshop, led by Jovanina Pagano, dance improviser, and Rachel Levitsky, an officer at The Office of Recuperative Strategies (oors.net), we will come together to generate, catalog and perform the language and movement of migration, its manifold appearances in our fast and mobile world. Within the unique structure of the island and the house and we will explore through words, dance, and sound how and where we move, the traces we leave, what is lost, and what of ourselves remains constant in our movements from place to place.
This session is open to the public and requires registration.
 
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Resources:
Poets.org Events Calendar
Poets and Writers (P&W) Literary Events Calendar (Filter by City, State)
Poetry Project Calendar
Belladonna* Reading Series
KGB Bar Calendar
Nuyorican Poets Cafe Calendar
Poets House Calendar
Time Out New York | Book Events

The series is overseen by Managing/Poetry Editor Lynne DeSilva-Johnson and maintained by Taylor Quilty, Exit Strata Program Assistant. Please email editors@exitstrata.com to submit your event/organization with READINGS ROUNDUP in the subject line for inclusion in future listings!