Poetry Month Events in NOLA: It's almost OUR month

You know I love a whole month in which the rest of the world thinks about poetry.

This Thursday, 17 Poets! welcomes poet, artist, and teacher Sunday Shae Parker to the stage with a multimedia performance, 8 PM. www.17poets.com

April brings a whirlwind of ruth weiss events as she returns to New Orleans for the first time in 61 years.

Her book DESERT JOURNAL is just out from Trembling Pillow Press.

ruth weiss events:

Tuesday, April 3, 7:15PM: The Black Widow Salon at Crescent City Books
For info. and to RSVP as seating is limited, email: books@crescentcitybooks.com

Wednesday, April 4th, 7:30PM: Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center presents rare screenings of filmmaker ruth weiss' work including "The Brink" a 40 minute film that Stan Brakhage called "one of the most important San Francisco films of the period."  visit: zetgeistinc.net

Thursday, April 5th, 8PM at 17 Poets! Literary and Performance Series:  ruth weiss reads and signs DESERT JOURNAL with the POET OF NEW ORLEANS BRASS BAND featuring Joe Zeno, Sr. on tuba; Christopher Davis, trumpet; Chad Moore, clarinet; Mark Francis, trombone; and Clyde CM3 on drums with special guest Hal Davis on on-da-log

from the latest issue of Entrepôt (issue 7) 

April 10th head over to Octavia Books to hear Lee Meitzen Grue read from DOWNTOWN (Trembling Pillow Press)  and Niyi Osundare read from City Without People (Black Widow press), 6pm.  (Osundare's poem "Raindrum" was recently selected by the US Olympics committee to represent his native Nigeria in the winter olympics. )

If you're in Baton Rouge, head over to the River Writers Reading Series at Boudreaux's to hear New Orleans poets Bill Lavender, reading from Memory Wing (Black Widow Press) and Geoff Munsterman, editor of Entrepôt. Tuesday, April 10th, 8PM

April 12, 8PM 17 Poets! Literary and Performance Series welcomes poet Bruce Andrews as well as poet and OffBeat writer Alex Rawls


April 19th: Baton Rouge Poets Christopher Shipman and Vincent Cellucci (hosts of the River Writers Series) read and sign books along with Portland poet Allison Cobb, 8PM

Cover by Tracey McTague

April 20th: New Orleans Museum of Art features a panel and reading hosted by Susan Larson with poets Megan Burns and Gina Ferrara and artist Tricia Vitrano as part of their Friday Night Events, 5:30-7:30

Can't be in New Orleans 'cause you in Lafayette: no problem, cher!
On Saturday, April 21st, at 7 p.m., CARPE DIEM! GELATO-ESPRESSO BAR invites the public to spend a spring evening experiencing poetry and performance art while enjoying gelato, espresso, tea, and pastries when it hosts "VOICES IN SPRING: Poetry by Marthe Reed and Performance by Bonny McDonald"

April 26th: Book Signing and Reading by Moira Crone of her new novel, The Not Yet (UNO press)

17 Poets! Featured Readers

You can now follow 17 Poets! on Facebook.


Thursday, May 6, 2010
Please join us in celebration as 17 Poets! Literary & Performance series presents a reading/performance featuring novelist and short story writer MOIRA CRONE and poet DAVE BRINKS (Dave's Birthday Party!) on Thursday, May 6, 2010, 8:00pm @ The Gold Mine Saloon. And don't forget to bring your luminous words & wisecracks for yet another amazing evening of mirth, fantasm & reverie!




Moira Crone is a widely published short story writer and novelist. She received the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction from the Southern Fellowship of Writers in 2009 for the body of her work.A native of Eastern North Carolina, she lives in New Orleans.

Her publications include, What Gets Into Us (2006), Dream State (Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi in 1995), A Period of Confinement (New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1986, Paperback, New York: Harper and Row, 1987. French Translation: Paris: Gallimard 1986); and The Winnebago Mysteries and Other Stories (New York: The Fiction Collective/? Braziller 1982).






Dave Brinks was born in ‘67 and raised in New Orleans, poet and essayist Dave Brinks’ heritage is Acadian French and Choctaw. Brinks is editor-in-chief of YAWP: A Journal of Poetry & Art, publisher of Trembling Pillow Press, director of 17 Poets! Literary & Performance Series, and founder of The New Orleans School for the Imagination. His poems and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines, newspapers, journals and anthologies in the US and overseas, and have been translated into French and Romanian. In addition, Brinks' works have aired on NPR’s Hearing Voices and PBS’ News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and also have been featured in National Geographic Traveler and Louisiana Cultural Vistas. He is the author of six books including the acclaimed The Caveat Onus (Black Widow Press 2009), as well as two new collections forthcoming from Black Widow Press: The Light on Earth Street and The Geometry of Sound.


On Jan 19, 2010 Brinks and his wife, poet Megan Burns, celebrated the birth of their third child, daughter Issa Mae!