On Saturday, November 20th, poets of all stripes take the Singh Performance Center stage for an Evening of Poetry from 7:00 - 9:00pm! A celebration of poetic excellence and emergence, this event includes readings from four featured regional poets and an open mic segment.
The poetry showcase will spotlight Candace Curran, Paul Richmond, Karen Warinsky, and Gerald Yelle, who will read during the first hour. Following intermission, community poets from the audience will be able to participate in an open mic segment, with five minutes allotted to each poet. Participants will be able to sign up to read at the start of the event.
This event is being hosted by ValleyCAST, the arts and culture arm of Open Sky Community Services. For COVID safety all attendees are required to wear a mask regardless of vaccination status. The event is free and open to the public.
About the featured poets:
Candace Curran has organized, performed and collaborated in visual art and poetry exhibitions throughout western Mass, and has been twice named Western Massachusetts Poet’s Seat laureate. Her works include the book Playing in Wrecks (2011) and a new poetry collection forthcoming this year.
Paul Richmond was named Massachusetts Beat Poet Laureate (2017 – 2019) and National Beat Poet Laureate (2019 – 2020). He is the owner and operator of Human Error Publishing. He hosts several spoken word festivals and monthly readings and has published many books including Ready or Not - Living in the Breakdown Lane (2009) and You Might Need a Bigger Hammer (2015). His newest work is The 24 Hours Store Was Closed (2020). Richmond is also a member of the Funkadelic band “Do It Now.”
Karen Warinsky was a finalist in the Montreal International Poetry Contest in 2013. Her work has been featured in various anthologies, including Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands (2016), the Mizmor Anthology (2019), Deep Wild Journal (2020), and Honoring Nature (2020), as well as several literary magazines. Her debut collection, Gold in Autumn, was released last summer. She organizes the Roseland Park Poetry series in Woodstock, CT.
Gerald Yelle is a member of the Florence, Massachusetts Poets Society. His books include The Holyoke Diaries (2014), Mark My Word and the New World Order (2016), and No Place I Would Rather Be (2021).
For further information about this program or to learn more about participating, email Karen Warinsky: karen.warinsky@gmail.com.
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