Detroit poet Dawn McDuffie reads from her new chapbook, Happenstance and Miracles, which explores hidden aspects of Detroit. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757
Fourth Wednesdays have a featured reader for 50 minutes and then open mic for an hour. All writers welcome. Sign up begins at 6:45 p.m. Free. Contact Ed at 668-7523; eacmorso@sbcglobal.net or cwpoetrycircl.tumblr.com.
Katherine Edgren has a new book of poems, The Grain Beneath the Gloss. Her two poetry chapbooks are Long Division andTransports. Her poems have appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Christian Science Monitor, Barbaric Yawp, and elsewhere. A retired social worker and former Ann Arbor City Council member, she lives in Dexter.
Jennifer Burd is the author of a new poetry collection, Day’s Late Blue, and the earlier Body and Echo. Her book, Daily Bread: A Portrait of Homeless Men and Women of Lenawee County, Michigan, is creative nonfiction. She teaches creative writing and literature online for Jackson Community College.
Laszlo Slomovits is one of the twin brothers in Ann Arbor’s children’s folk music duo, Gemini. Besides his music for children, he has set to music the work of many poets, including ancient Sufi mystics Rumi and Hafiz and contemporary poets Naomi Shihab Nye and Jennifer Burd
7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757
Toastmasters is an international group devoted to helping each other grow in our abilities to give speeches. The Sweetwaters Toastmasters Club meets twice monthly. We are a fun and friendly group! Toastmasters also helps you develop leadership skills if you wish to do that. Come as many times as you want for free, and decide later if you want to join. In the meantime, come make new friends and have fun!
Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea on Washington Street, 123 West Washington Street. Free. 323-286-3999. https://www.facebook.com/groups/TMSweet/
Join the Dexter District Library in welcoming back professional storytellers, Jane Fink and Steve Daut as they share the wit and wisdom of American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer, Mark Twain and American cartoonist, author, humorist, journalist, playwright, and celebrated wit, James Grover Thurber. This fun filled performance is sure to amuse and entertain. Register at the Adult Service Desk or call the library at 734-426-4477.
Contact: lryan@dexter.lib.mi.us
Location: Dexter District Library – Lower Level
Readings by teen poets from Washtenaw County battling for a spot at the Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam finals on Apr. 12. Other semifinals are held at Community High School (Mar. 2, 7 p.m.), Huron High School (Mar. 8, 6 p.m.), Washtenaw International High School (Mar. 15, 6 p.m.), and Pioneer High School (Mar. 16, 6 p.m.).
6:30 p.m., Skyline High School, 2552 N. Maple. Free. 214-9995
Rescheduled from February 9.
Literati is excited to host translator Grace Mahoney for this special bi-lengual reading of Ukranian poet Iryna Starovoyt’s collection A Field of Foundlings.
About A Field of Foundlings:
Presented in a dual-language format, A Field of Foundlings is the first in Lost Horse Press’s series of Ukrainian poetry in translation. Starovoyt’s poetry investigates the curse and virtue of forgetting, the suppressed generational memory of the twentieth century, and the new context of its retelling in Eastern Europe. Drawing on the paradoxes of mythology, technology, and tradition, Starovoyt brings the traces of undesirable history and the minefields of memory into an unexpected constellation to interrogate assertions of knowledge and meaning-making in the world today. In a time where the chaos and power of forces beyond our own seem to diminish the potency of the past, Starovoyt’s poems invoke a conscious dialogue with a past that is not severed from the ever-changing present, but echoes in our sense of self, brings some continuity to our daily decisions, and orients us toward the future.
Grace Mahoney is a translator of Ukrainian and Russian literature. She is a PhD student in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan.
Readings by teen poets from Washtenaw County battling for a spot at the Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam finals on Apr. 12. Other semifinals are held at Community High School (Mar. 2, 7 p.m.), Huron High School (Mar. 8, 6 p.m.), Washtenaw International High School (Mar. 15, 6 p.m.), and Pioneer High School (Mar. 16, 6 p.m.).
Join us for a talk and signing with Tim Fielder, author and illustrator of the graphic novel collection, Matty’s Rocket: Book One! Matty’s Rocket was released to critical acclaim, with Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz saying, “Fielder takes us on a fantastic, time-warping, genre-bending Afrofuturistic voyage to
the final frontier and beyond … Mattyʼs Rocket is just superb.”
About Matty’s Rocket: Book One
Matty’s Rocket is a galaxy spanning tale about the adventures of space pilot Matty Watty. This series is based in an alternative past where the pulp stylings of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis collide with the real world events of World War 2, FDR, Nazis, the Harlem Renaissance and the oppressive Jim Crow era, Watch as Matty navigates her vessel through a dangerous world filled with evil villains, heroic feats, alien oddities and down home adventure. This 120 page graphic novel collects Matty’s Rocket issues 1-3 with a 12 page Epilogue, special guest appearances, and behind the scenes exposes. Creator Tim Fielder takes this ongoing graphic novel series into a beautifully painted style that fully delivers cinematic power.
About the Author/Illustrator
Tim Fielder is an Illustrator, concept designer, cartoonist, and animator born and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He has a lifelong love of Visual Afrofutuism, Pulp entertainment, and action films. He holds other afrofuturists such as Samuel Delany, Steven Barnes, and Octavia Butler as major influences. He has worked over the years in the storyboarding, film visual development, gaming, comics, and animation industries for clients as varied as Marvel Comics, The Village Voice, Tri-Star Pictures, to Ubisoft Entertainment. He also works as an educator for institutions such as New York University and the New York Film Academy. Tim hopes to push forward with his art in the emerging digital content delivery systems of the day. To that end, Matty’s Rocket is Tim’s first foray in the genre coined as “Dieselfunk”. He makes his home with his wife and children in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Harlem.
Performance by this slam poet, a U-M student. Preceded by a poetry open mike.
7 p.m. Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.
Local short story writer Alex Kourvo and young adult novelist Bethany Neal discuss how to writers make choices about character and plot development. For adult and teen (grade 6 & up) fiction and nonfiction writers. Also, Kourvo and Neal host an open house for writers to connect with one another and/or work on their projects at 7 p.m. on Mar. 19.
7-8:45 p.m., AADL Westgate. Free. 327-8301.
