Calendar

Sep
2
Sun
Jasmine An and Alex Kime: Ann Arbor Poetry @ Espresso Royale
Sep 2 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Readings by these 2 poets. An is a Thailand-based queer poet (and Midwest native) whose 2016 book, Naming the No-Name Woman, mythologizes her experiences as a Chinese-American woman with various overlapping identities. U-M social work grad student Kime writes freeform poetry with queer and activist themes. Kime is also an RC creative writing alum!
7 p.m. Espresso Royale, 324 S. State. $5 suggested donation. facebook.com/AnnArborPoetry.

Sep
4
Tue
The Moth Storyslam: Rivals @ Greyline
Sep 4 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Sept. 4 & 18. Open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on the themes of “Rivals” (Sept. 4) & “Extra Mile” (Sept. 18). The 3-person judging teams are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam (see Sept. 26 listing). Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.

 

Sep
12
Wed
Toastmasters Meeting @ Sweetwaters
Sep 12 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

ToastMasters at SweetWaters is an opportunity to practice your personal and/or professional speaking as well as Leadership in a fun friendly atmosphere.
The club is open to everyone. Attendees have the opportunity to speak, give and receive feedback about speaking, presentations and current events.
We typically have 2-4 prepared speeches followed by (Kind and constructive evaluations) to provide feedback and growth. Attendees will have an opportunity for impromptu speaking as well.
Sweetwaters Cafe, 123 W Washington. Free. chrisjriley@hotmail.com 

 

 

 

 

Sep
17
Mon
Jim Glenn: A History of the English Language: The First Thousand Years @ AADL Westgate
Sep 17 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Local storyteller Jim Glenn performs a storytelling program on the history of English, beginning with the Roman invasion through to the end of the 15th century. For grade 8-adult.
7-8:30 p.m., AADL Westgate. Free. 327-4200.

 

Sep
18
Tue
The Moth Storyslam: Extra Mile @ Greyline
Sep 18 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Sept. 4 & 18. Open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on the themes of “Rivals” (Sept. 4) & “Extra Mile” (Sept. 18). The 3-person judging teams are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam (see Sept. 26 listing). Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.

 

Sep
26
Wed
Toastmasters Meeting @ Sweetwaters
Sep 26 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

ToastMasters at SweetWaters is an opportunity to practice your personal and/or professional speaking as well as Leadership in a fun friendly atmosphere.
The club is open to everyone. Attendees have the opportunity to speak, give and receive feedback about speaking, presentations and current events.
We typically have 2-4 prepared speeches followed by (Kind and constructive evaluations) to provide feedback and growth. Attendees will have an opportunity for impromptu speaking as well.
Sweetwaters Cafe, 123 W Washington. Free. chrisjriley@hotmail.com 

 

 

 

 

The Moth Storyslam: Grand Slam @ The Ark
Sep 26 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

All-star storytelling showdown featuring the last 10 winners of the Ann Arbor Storyslams, the monthly open mike storytelling competitions sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show.
8 p.m., The Ark, 316 S. Main. $25 in advance at themoth.org and at the door. 761-1451.

Oct
2
Tue
Poetry at Literati: Elizabeth Schmuhl: Premonitions @ Literati
Oct 2 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Literati is exited to host poet Elizabeth Schmuhl, an RC Creative Writing alum, who will be reading from her new collection Premonitions. Keith Taylor will give an introduction to the reading and lead a Q&A discussion aftewards.

About Premonitions:
Visceral and brimming with vitality, the poems in Premonitions reverberate with the voice of a woman on a secluded farm, confronting her emotional and physical isolation. Drawing on her own experience as a daughter of a third-generation fruit farmer, Elizabeth Schmuhl gives readers a fresh and powerful perspective on what it means to be alive.

Layering one upon another, the poems blur boundaries and create a volatile state out of which the remarkable and unexpected occur. Embracing chaos, change, and unpredictability, these poems are energetically charged and infused with succinct, imagistic language. They reach beyond the constraints assigned to the female form and examine a place where time, the body, sexuality, and the natural world are not fixed. At times surreal, at others painfully real, the poems in Premonitions are the expression of a human life that merges and melds with the world around it, acting and reacting, loving and despairing, disintegrating and rebuilding. The speaker travels fluidly between strata of the natural world and her own body. Adding to the complexity of her poems, Schmuhl creates additional layers of meaning as the poems and their titles relate to the author’s synesthesia, a sensory phenomenon through which letters and numbers are experienced as colors and emotions.

Premonitions will turn the reader inward, encouraging the examination of the small details of life and a growing acceptance of the perpetual turmoil and uncertainty of existence despite our own desire to find a firm footing. This volume will be prized by lovers of contemporary poetry and literature alike.

Elizabeth Schmuhl is a multidisciplinary artist whose work appears in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Paper Darts, PANK, Hobart, Pinwheel, and elsewhere. She has worked at various nonprofits, including the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and currently works at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Keith Taylor has published many books over the years: collections of poetry, a collection of very short stories, co-edited volumes of essays and fiction, and a volume of poetry translated from Modern Greek.

7 p.m., Literati, 124 E. Washington. Free. 585-5567

Residential College Reading featuring Carmen Bugan, David Cope, and Ken Mikolowski @ Benzinger Library
Oct 2 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Poet and memoirist Carmen Bugan was born in Romania and emigrated to the United States in 1989. She earned a BA from the University of Michigan Residential College, an MA in creative writing from Lancaster University, and a MA and PhD, both in English Literature, from Oxford University. Bugan’s work reckons with the legacy of totalitarianism, including the crippling effects of the culture of surveillance that existed under Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Her visit is co-sponsored by the LSA Honors Program and the Residential College.

Ken Mikolowski taught poetry at the RC for many years.

The Moth Storyslam: Scandal @ Greyline
Oct 2 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Oct. 2 & 16. Open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on “Scandal” (Oct. 2) and “Disguises” (Oct. 16). The 3-person judging teams are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $10. 764-5118. [map]

 

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