Third Thursday Open Mic

January features Poet James Finnegan

When: Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

James Finnegan has published poems in Ploughshares, Poetry East, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and other literary magazines. He is the current president of the Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens. With Dennis Barone, he edited Visiting Wallace, an anthology of poems related to Wallace Stevens. In 2001 he started an internet discussion list called New-Poetry and he blogs aphoristic ars poetica at ursprache (http://ursprache.blogspot.com).

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

For the potluck social please bring a sampling of your favorite snack to share (cheese & crackers,  stuffed breads, cookies etc).

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

December features Poet David Leff

& pi’s Year-end Potluck Social

When: Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

David K. Leff is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Price of Water (2008) and Depth of Field (2010).  His nonfiction book, The Last Undiscovered Place, was a Connecticut Book Award finalist.  A second nonfiction book, Deep Travel, was released in 2009.  A book of essays entitled Hidden in Plain Sight that will be out from Wesleyan University Press in May.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

For the potluck social please bring a sampling of your favorite snack to share (cheese & crackers,  stuffed breads, cookies etc).

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

November features Poet Mary Elizabeth Lang

When: November 17th, 2011

Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading. 

Mary Elizabeth Lang earned her MFA in Poetry from Bennington Writing Seminars and formerly taught English at Southern Connecticut State University.  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Ekphrasis; The Prose Poem, an International Journal; Connecticut Review; Connecticut River Review; War, Literature and the Arts; Caduceus; Underwood Review; and Naugatuck River Review.  Her first book of poetry, Under Red Cedars, was published by Little Red Tree Publishing in 2008.  She also has written and co-authored a number of articles and a book on childcare.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

October features Poet Brad Davis

When: October 20th, 2011

Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

Winner of the 2005 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival National Competition, Brad has published four books of poems (Antrim House), with a fifthforthcoming from an Oregon publisher. He was the founding editor of Broken Bridge Review that ran for four years before succumbing to the present recession and is currently helping found an on-line poetryjournal in partnership with an historic Connecticut institution. Hispoems have appeared in a wide range of journals: Poetry, The Paris Review, The Cafe Review, Image, Connecticut Review, Puerto del Sol, Michigan Quarterly Review, Tar River Poetry, Christianity & Literature, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. His day jobs have included teaching (Eastern Connecticut State University, College of the Holy Cross, Pomfret School), coaching, institutional chaplaincy, educational consulting, chicken farming, and editing.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

September features Poet Cynthia Zarin

When: September 15th, 2011

Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

FALL IN at pi-New Haven! Cynthia Zarin was born in New York City and educated at Harvard and Columbia. She is the author of three previous books of poetry—The Watercourse, Fire Lyric, and The Swordfish Tooth—and several books for children. She is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and winner of the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, she teaches at Yale and lives in New York City.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

August features New Hampshire Poet Laureate Walter E. Butts

When: Augut 18th, 2011

Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

W.E. Butts is New Hampshire’s Poet Laureate (2009-2014).  He is the author of nine poetry collections, including Radio Time (Cherry Grove, 2011), and Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, which was chosen as a finalist for the 2005 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry and selected winner of the 2006 Iowa Source Poetry Book Prize.

His poems have recently appeared in Cider Press Review, Poetry East, Saranac Review, and Tygerburning, the online journals www.connotationpress.com and www.towerjournal.com, and the anthology, An Endless Skyway: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate (Ice Cube Press). The recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award, he teaches in the low-residency BFA in Creative Writing Program at Goddard College.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

July features poet and pi-new haven co-chair Eli Cleary 

When: July 21, 2011 Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

It’s summertime! Join pi-New Haven co-chair, Eli Cleary, for AN INTERACTIVE READING of her latest work in progress, Course & Speed. Eli’s poems have been published in a few journals here and there and nominated for a prize or two. In this reading, we travel through the forest, across the cove and into the spider’s web, one poem at a time.  Or maybe you’d prefer we go the other way? You, the audience, will be in control of the order and direction of our virtual summer voyage! It’s sure to be a special poetry night in New Haven from start to finish! Don’t miss it!

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

June Features our Annual Favorite Poem Project Panel!!!!

Mark McGuire-Shwartz hosts Gemma Mathewson, David Leff, and Michael Kling

When: June 16, 2011 Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading.

Following the blueprint drawn up by former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, each year the Poetry Institute celebrates some of our favorite poems that have touched us and made poetry such an important part of our lives.  Our distinguished panel will share some of their favorites with us, and we encourage Open Mic readers to also bring in favorites of their own.

Gemma Mathewson was born under a new moon so it took her awhile to cast a shadow.  Poetry, for her, is a kind of skywriting. It involves melding the twin vertigos of altitude and disclosure, in the medium of vapor. The participant is one person for one moment who remembers to look up. Lately, her poetry focuses thematically on a futile attempt to perfect the third wish.  You can read her poetry at, gemop.wordpress.com (The Museum of Rain).

David K. Leff is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Price of Water (2008) and Depth of Field (2010).  His nonfiction book, The Last Undiscovered Place, was a Connecticut Book Award finalist.  A second nonfiction book, Deep Travel, was released in 2009.

Michael Kling is a freelance writer and editor, a website publisher, and a former magazine editor. He has had poems published in Shemom, Orphic Lute, and The Comstock Review and other journals.  He lives in Stratford with his wife and seven-year-old twins.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

 Featuring Dimitris Lyacos   

When: May 19, 2011 Doors Open at 6:30.  Reading starts at 7:00.

Where:  The Institute Library, 847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Please arrive a few minutes early to sign up for the reading. 

Dimitris Lyacos is a leading contemporary Greek poet and playwright.  His highly acclaimed trilogy Poena Damni (Z213: EXIT, Nyctivoe, The First Death), written over the course of eighteen years, has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian and German and has been performed across Europe as well as the USA. A wide range of interdisciplinary projects including drama, contemporary dance, video and sculpture installations as well as opera and contemporary music have been based on his trilogy. Excerpts have been published by numerous literary periodicals, principally English-speaking, throughout the world. Z213: EXIT, translated in English by Shorsha Sullivan, appeared recently in the UK by Shoestring Press.  For more information visit the author’s site: www.lyacos.net.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  

Free. Refreshments. Open mic.

Outstanding featured readers. In a casual setting.

Third Thursday Open Mic

Featuring Rachel Eliza Griffiths

When: April 21st, 2011 Doors Open at 6:30.

Reading starts at 7:00.

Where: The Institute Library,   847 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet, writer, photographer, and painter living in New York. A Cave Canem Fellow, she received an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Rachel Eliza is recipient of fellowships including Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, New York State Summer Writers Institute, Soul Mountain, New England Humanities Council, and others. Author of two chapbooks, Turn of Heaven (Paris Boulevard Press) and According to Beauty (Paris Boulevard Press) and a collection, Miracle Arrhythmia (Willow Books, 2010), her newest collection, Mule & Pear, is expected from New Issues Poetry and Prose  in 2011.

On the third Thursday of each month, The Poetry Institute Poetry Series celebrates an eclectic mix of poetic voices.  Free. Refreshments.  Open mic. Outstanding featured readers.  In a casual setting.   Open to all.