Chicagoland

Sandra Lim & Travis Nichols at Danny’s Reading Series
February 24 | 7:30 to 9 pm
Danny’s Tavern
1951 W. Dickens, Chicago

RHINO Reads! Poetry in Translation — Indonesian, Arabic, Tagalog, Chinese
Feburary 26 | 6-8 pm
Bros K, 500 Main St., Evanston, IL
[Open Mic 6:00 - 6:30 | Featured Poets 6:40 - 8:00]

Cleveland

A Reading with Poets Jason Koo, Simone Muench, and Mathias Svalina
February 25 | 7:30 pm
Cleveland State University, Main Classroom134
1899 East 22 Street

New York City

Riggio Forum: Cave Canem’s Poets on Craft
February 25 | 6:30 to 8 pm
The New School
Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
Arnhold Hall
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor

Bowery Books Presents: A Book Party & Reading by Fay Chiang for 7 Continents, 9 Lives
February 27 | 2 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (btwn. Houston & Bleeker)

San Francisco

Youth Speaks Poetry Slam Championship
February 26 | 7 pm
San Francisco Public Library
Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin St.
FREE and open to the publoc/

Blaze of Glory [Hyphen #19 "Trailblazing" Release Party]
February 26 | 9 pm-2 am
111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna St.
$10 | $20 includes 1 yr subscription (50% discount)
RSVP on Facebook or Going.com

San Jose, CA

SJSU Center for Literary Arts presents Marilyn Chin
February 25 | In Conversation w/ Sarn Maio @ 1:30 pm, Reading @ 7 pm
Martin Luther King Jr. Library, Rm. 225-229
150 East San Fernando Street

St. Paul, MN

Breathin’: An Evening of Spoken Word and Music with Eddy Zheng and DOSH
February 26 | 7-9 PM
Smail Gallery, Olin-Rice Science Center
Macalester College
[See here for more info about Eddy Zheng]

Washington, D.C.

Community: Chinese, American, and German Poetry (Time Shadows Poetry Reading)
(Poetry highlighting the diversity of DC Chinatown’s immigrant population)
February 7 | 2 to 4 pm
Goethe-Institut Washington, GoetheForum
812 Seventh Street, NW
RSVP to 202-289-1200 ext. 170 or to rsvp[at]washington(dot)goethe(dot)org

Boston

BU Creative Writing Faculty Reading (feat. Ha Jin, Louise Glück, Robert Pinsky, and others)
February 9th | 7:30 pm
BU School of Management Auditorum
Boston University

Chicago

Poetry Cafe at the Chicago Public Library
February 8th | 6:30-7:45 pm
Blackstone
4904 S. Lake Park Avenue
Call (312) 747-0511 to register in advance.

Dallas

Avante! (feat. Shin Yu Pai and Jerry Kelley)
2010 WordSpace Spring Reading Series
February 6th | 8 pm
Paperbacks Plus
6115 La Vista

Los Angeles

Beware of Cupid: A Valentine’s Day Show (dir. Julia Cho & Benjamin Kim)
Opening Feb. 5 (till Feb. 21) | Fridays & Saturdays @ 8 pm, Sundays @ 3 pm
The Actor’s Playpen
1514 N Gardner Street
Tickets: $14-$20

New York City

Artwall Performance (feat. Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and Greg Tate)
Feburary 6th | 2 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (btwn. Houston and Bleeker)

Jazz, the Japanese Connection at Nuyorican Poets Cafe
(Followed by Jazz Jam & Open Mic)
February 6th | 9 pm
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 E. 3rd St (btwn B & C Aves)
$15 cover ($10 for jazz jam musicians)
Reservation Recommended; Purchase advance tickets here

Kundiman & Verlaine Reading Series (feat. Vijay Seshadri, Brian Carey Chung, & Alison Roh Park)
February 7th | 5 pm (open bar from 4-5)
Verlaine
110 Rivington St.
(Ludlow & Essex Sts.)
$5 donation

Vincent Who? Documentary Screening (Hosted by the AAWW)
February 10th | 7 to 9 pm
Asian American Writers Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10A
Light refreshments served
$5 Suggested Donation (benefits the NY chapter of APA for Progress).

Sacramento

Yuyutsu RD Sharma Reads at the Sacramento Poetry Center
February 8th | 7:30 PM
Sacramento Poetry Center
1719 25th St.

San Francisco Bay Area

Opening Reception: “The Lost and Found” Solo Exhibit (the visual art of poet Truong Tran)
Presented by Kearny Street Workshop & Mina Dresden Gallery
February 5th | 7 to 9 pm
Mina Dresden Gallery
312 Valencia Street
San Francisco

GO!STYLE 2010
(feat. poets Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu and Loa Niumeitolu, alongside other top artists)
February 5th | 8 pm
Palace of Fine Arts Theater
3301 Lyon St., San Francisco
Preordered tickets: $40 General, $36 Family & Friends Discount, $15 Student
$10 Preorder Discounts available with code (Tickets $40 at the door)

American Chinatown Book Reading
February 9th | 6 pm
CHSA Museum & Learning Center
965 Clay St
San Francisco

Seattle

W.S. Merwin & Friends – A Benefit for Copper Canyon Press
February 4 | 7 to 9 pm
Town Hall
1119 Eighth Ave.
Tickets start at $10

Washington, DC

“Call + Response” (16 visual artists & 16 writers – incl. poet Gerald Maa) at the Hamiltonian Gallery
Until February 13
Hamiltonian Gallery
1353 U St, NW, Suite 101

Chicago

“Time Goes On” Release Party (presented by the Neighborhood Writing Alliance)
February 1 | 6-8 pm
St. Andrews Church (upstairs)
48 N. Hoyne

Hanover, NH

Poets Michael Leong & Nomi Stone at Dartmouth College
January 28 | 4 pm
Wren Room/Sanborn Library
Dartmouth College

Los Angeles

Refugee Nation (written and performed by Leilani Chan and Ova Saopeng)
presented by the Laotion American Organization at UCLA
February 1 | 7:30 PM (Doors open at 7 PM)
Ackerman Grand Ballroom, UCLA
FREE and Open to the Public

New York City

ASL Poetry Slam Presents: Mark Mayo – $3
January 28 | 6 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (btwn. Houston and Bleeker)
Admission: $3

92nd St. Y Presents: “The Immigrant Experience” Reading & Panel [Becoming Americans anthology event]
feat. Jessica Hagedorn, Jamaica Kincaid, Norman Manea, Gary Shteyngart
February 1 | 8 pm
Kauffmann Concert Hall
Lexington Ave. at 92nd St.
Tickets: $27 (general), $10 (age 35 and under)

Asian American Arts Alliance Town Hall Meeting
February 2 | 10 am – 12 pm
Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI – CUNY)
25 West 43rd Street, 18th Fl (between 5th & 6th Avenues)
FREE and Open to the Public

San Francisco

Kent Wong presents An Evening of Stories on Asian and Latino Labor Organizing
January 28 | 6-8PM
International Hotel Manilatown Center
868 Kearny St (at Jackson)
FREE

Beautiful as Yesterday Reading & Discussion (Fan Wu)
January 30 | 2:30 – 4 pm
Chinatown Meeting Room (San Francisco Public Library)
1135 Powell St. (near Jackson)

SF Poet Laureate Inaugural Address (Diane DiPrima)
February 2 | 5-8 pm
San Francisco Public Library
Koret Auditorium (Main Library)
100 Larkin St. (at Grove)

Washington, D.C.

ASL Open Mic Poetry
January 29 | 11pm
Busboys & Poets
14th and V
Admission: $5

Chicago

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai at Northwestern (Spoken Word Performance + Q&A)
January 14 @ 8 pm and January 15 @ 3:30 pm
Northwestern University, Norris Center, McCormick Auditorium
1999 Campus Dr.
Evanston, IL
FREE

Concord, NH

Janice Y.K. Lee at Gibson’s Bookstore
January 18 | 7 pm
Gibson’s Bookstore
27 South Main Street

New York City

TyperwriterGirls Poetry Cabaret (feat. readings by Patrick Rosal and Huang Xiang)
January 17 | 6 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (Between Houston & Bleeker)
$7 admission

World of Poetry & PAF Shab-e She’r Present: Dalia Sofer
Open Mic to follow reading
January 20 | 6 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (Between Houston and Bleecker)
or, watch this event live on the web

Medea and Its Double (Seoul Factory for the Performing Arts)
through January 24; Thurs – Sat @ 8 pm
LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club
74A East 4th St.
Tickets $18

Seattle

Words Expressed—Oliver de la Paz, Rick Barot, Donna Miscolta, Toni Bajado
Filipino Poets & Writers Reading, presented by the United Filipino Club of Seattle University
January 14 | 7 pm
Seattle University, Le Roux Room (Student Center 160)
12th and Cherry St.’s
FREE and open to the public

Pimone Triplett at Open Books
January 14 | 7:30 PM
Open Books: A Poem Emporium
2414 N. 45th Street
Seattle

Allen Say at the Wing Luke Asian Museum
January 16 | 4 pm
Wing Luke Asian Museum
719 S. King Street
Seattle

Skagit River Poetry Festival Showcase (feat. Oliver de la Paz and others)
January 16 | 7 pm
Village Books
1200 Eleventh Street
Bellingham, WA

San Francisco Bay Area

Growing Up Filipino II Book Launch
Hosted by PAWA Arkipelago
January 16 | 2-5 pm
Bayanihan Community Center
1010 Mission St., San Francisco

Washington, D.C.

14th Annual Poetry Extravaganza In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
presented by Collective Voices
January 16 | noon-5 pm
Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, Auditorium A-5
901 G St., NW
First-come, first-serve seating (groups of 10+ encouraged to register in advance)
202-727-1281 for more information
FREE

SULU D.C. Jan 16 Show
feat. Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, Simone Jacobson, Elahe, Taiyi Sun, Marco Mercado, DJ Mars Noble
January 16 @ 7 pm – January 17 @ 2 am
Doors open at 6:30, Show at 7, Dance party at 10
Almaz Restaurant and Lounge
1212 U Street NW
$10 general admission | $8 students
All ages; attendees under 21 will need supervision after the show

“Sunday Kind of Love” — Celebrating Four Years With Young DC Poets
Open Mic + Set Readings (feat. Abdul Ali, Danielle Evennou, and Adam Pellegrini)
January 17 | 4 pm
Busboys & Poets (Langston Room)
14th and V Streets NW
FREE and open to all.

Boston

East Meets Words Open Mic (sponsored by the Boston Progress Art Collective)
January 8 at the East Meets West Bookstore.
934 Mass Ave.
Cambridge, MA
$3 Suggested Donation

Chicago

Poetry Cafe with the Chicago Public Library
January 11 | 6:30 – 7:45 pm
Blackstone
4904 S. Lake Park Avenue
Bring at least 3 selections, each no longer than 4 minutes.

New York City

Broken Light: The 16th annual Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word and Performance Extravaganza
January 1 | 2 pm to midnight
Bowery Poetry Club
Special Collection for Books Through Bars & Urban Pathways (please bring paperback books and canned food).
OR, watch it live on the web: http://www.rfg3travel.com/bowerylive103008.html

Asian American Arts Alliance’s Annual Town Hall
January 5 | 10 am to 12 pm
Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI – CUNY)
25 West 43rd Street, 18th Fl (between 5th & 6th Avenues)
RSVP at  http://alliancetownhall.eventbrite.com
“Artists and arts workers: If you wish to make a 2-minute pitch to promote your events, perform excerpts of your work, call for collaborators, or call for submissions, include a one sentence description of your pitch when you rsvp and we will add you to the agenda.”
FREE and Open to the Public

The Soft Skull Presents: Michael Muhammad Knigh and the Kominas
January 6 | 10 pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (btwn. Houston and Bleeker)
$8 Admission | OR, watch live online

San Francisco Bay Area

Poet/Speak Open Reading, presented by Poetry Santa Cruz
December 17 | 2 pm
Main Library upstairs Meeting Room
224 Church Street, Santa Cruz.
FREE

Film Screening:  “Autumn Gem” (A film by Rae Chang & Adam Tow)
January 9 | 2:30 – 4 pm
Chinatown Meeting Room (SFPL)
1135 Jackson St. (Near Powell)
San Francisco

James Scully and Adrienne Rich
January 12 | 7:30 pm
Capitola Book Cafe
1475 41st Avenue, Capitola
Suggested $3 Donation

Seattle

Castalia Reading Series (feat. UW MFA writers)
January 5 | 8 pm
Hugo House, 1634 11th Avenue
FREE and open to the public

Opening Reception: Return Home from the War Exhibit
(Perspectives on War by Asian American Veterans)
January 7 | 5:30 pm (during free first Thursday)
Wing Luke Asian Museum
719 South King Street

* * *

Calls for Entries

Meritage Press 9th Annual Holiday Poetry Contest, judged by Aileen Ibardaloza
Deadline: January 5th (submit via email)
Seeking: Work by Filipino poets worldwide

Kundiman Book Prize
Postmark Deadline: January 15
Seeking: Unpublished full-length poetry manuscripts (50-70 pages)
Entry Fee: $25

Asian American International Film Festival 2010
Postmark Deadline: January 27 (Early); February 24 (Final)
Seeking: Narrative Features, Documentary Features, Short Films, Music Video, Screenplays, Works-In-Progress, Youth Films (by filmmakers under 20)

Slant Film Festival: Bold Asian American Images
10th Annual Shorts Film Festival. May 22, 2010.
Postmark Deadline: January 30, 2010
Seeking: Short Films by Asian American Filmmakers; All genres accepted

Boston

Open Orchestra by the Boston Progress Collective
(Sister program to East Meets Words open mic series)
December 18 | 8 pm
934 Massachusetts Ave.
$3 minimum donation for participants or audience
nobody turned away for lack of funds / all ages welcome

Chicago

Gerber/Hart Library Holidaze Book Sale
(Includes both LGBT & non-LGBT books; Silent Auction)
Dec 18 & 19 from 12-4 pm | Dec 20 from 12 – 6 pm
1127 W. Granville Ave.

New York City

Ching Chong Chinaman by Lauren Yee (A Staged Reading)
December 18 | 7 pm
The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
520 Eighth Avenue – between 36th and 37th Streets
3rd Floor – Bruce Mitchell Room
$10 Suggested Donation at the Door

Sweet Karma by Henry Ong, an Immigrant Theatre Project Production
December 19 @ 2 and 8 pm; December 20 @ 3 pm
Queens Theatre in the Park
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Flushing, NY
$20 Regular Admission; student, senior, and multi-show discounts

HAPA-PALOOZA! feat. Koba, Samantha Chase, Michelle Meyers, Jared Rehberg, Una Osata
Presented by The Sulu Series
December 20 | 8 pm
The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (btwn. Houston and Bleeker)
Can’t make it to NYC?  Watch it live on the web.

Philadelphia

Family Style Open Mic feat. Thaddeus Rutkowski
Theme: “HAPA HAPPY: Celebrating all that is Mixed and Multi”
December 18 | 7:30 pm
Asian Arts Initiative
1219 Vine Street
Sliding Scale Admission: $5-$10

San Francisco

Kearney Street + Kaya:  SF Thomasson Release & Holiday Party
December 18 | 6 to 9 pm
PariSoma, 1436 Howard St. @ 10th
FREE Admission

5th Annual South Asian Writers Event, feat. Summi Kaipa and Latika Mangrulkar
December 19 | 3 pm
SF Public Library – Main Library Latino/Hispanic B
100 Larkin St. (at Grove)

Chronicle Books Holiday Warehouse Sale (80% everything)
Dec 17 from 5-7 pm | Dec 18 from 9 am – 7 pm | Dec 19 from 10 am – 5 pm
Chronicle Books
680 Second St
Between Townsend and Brannan

Washington, D.C.

American Sign Language Poetry Open Mic
December 18 | 11 pm
Busboys & Poets Restaurant, Langston Room
14th & V Streets NW, historic U Street neighborhood
$3 Admission

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I went into Chicago with a few friends, and decided to use the opportunity to try out the downtown portion of the Poetry Foundation’s Chicago Poetry Tour.  My companions very graciously agreed to take the tour with me—no small feat, considering that it’s a 45-minute walking tour, and a few of them were dragging rolling luggage with them the whole time!  Much to our delight, it ended up being a very pleasant experience for all of us.  In particular, one of our number had never been to Chicago before, so it was a perfect way to show him pieces of the Loop.  But even for those of us who were more familiar with the city, it was wonderful to see the neighborhood around Millennium Park from a different perspective.   The downtown portion of the tour (which is the main tour listed on the web site) takes you almost straight down Michigan Avenue (perfect for us, since our train into the city disembarked at Randolph Station), and then turns west and ends a bit more inland.  It works like this: before going to Chicago, you download the audio file containing the guide, and a map (not necessary, but interesting/helpful if you’re one of those directionally challenged people like me who needs to know exactly where you are in reference to the rest of the neighborhood at every minute) from the Poetry Foundation’s website.  The audio is a single track, and is available in either mp3 or mp4.  You then put the audio file on your portable music device, and turn it on whenever you reach the tour’s start point (The Chicago Cultural Center, at 78 E. Washington).  From there, you follow the audio as it guides you through six different stops of interest (pausing whenever you want to explore a shop, get food, or look at something else along the way— the audio even recommends doing this at several points in the narration), and end up at the Harold Washington Library (400 S. State St), which is conveniently located next to a CTA stop.

There were several things that I really enjoyed about this tour.  The first is that it really gave me a new way to see the city.  I loved walking in and out buildings and hearing not only about their histories, but about the literature that has surrounded them.  Even walking down blustery Michigan Ave. and hearing a poem about the wind lifting the hats (I think?) off the heads of tourists was an extremely vivid experience.  I think one’s normal experience of Michigan Ave. is a sense of thrill at being in a big city, surrounded by fancy buildings and tall skyscrapers and the wonderful waterfront park.  It’s a lot of lights and starry-eyed romance.  But so much of the history behind it all gets lost.  I’d say that the second thing I enjoyed about the tour is that it took us into the buildings themselves, which are filled with literary legacies, and even more gorgeous inside than they are outside.  As one of my companions later pointed out, one would normally never have thought to go into the Chicago Cultural Center (with its gorgeous Tiffany glass rotunda), or into the Fine Arts Building (with its awesome elevator and its paneled halls—I enjoyed imagining Frank Lloyd Wright and Carl Sandburg walking through the corridors).  But the tour took us there.  And being in the heart of some of these buildings had a kind of magic of its own.  I felt that I was somehow being let into a brilliant, but well-kept secret.  Finally, I really appreciated the audio narration’s very clear, detailed directions.  I am extremely bad at navigating in a city, and would probably have gotten lost if the audio had simply told me to direct myself using the map.  As it was, the narrator would direct me to “turn left” after it an appropriate amount of time had passed, or to “look for this building across the street” and “cross here.”  If I found myself a little ahead of the directions, I just had to pause until I reached the next specified corner, and then turn it back on.  If the directions lagged behind,  I could just stop for a minute and wait for them to catch up.

There were also some disappointments about this tour (relatively few, but still some).  One was that, because (as the narration recommends for obvious safety reasons) I had the audio turned down relatively low whenever on the street, and because most of the tour actually takes place outside, I found it very difficult to hear or to concentrate on the poems being read as I walked between stops.  Perhaps a person with a better attention span than myself could have done it more easily, but between reading street signs, communicating with my companions, and hearing the traffic rush by, I found that it was almost impossible to fully focus on what was being said (especially since some of the readers on the recording used a slightly softer, performative tone of voice).  This was really a bummer, as the poetry had been the part of the tour that I was looking forward to the most!  I was not alone in this, either.  My companions also found it difficult to concentrate on the narration.  In fact, they eventually stopped listening to the audio between stops and ended up relying on me to tell them where to go next.  Perhaps it would’ve been better to pause and then to wait until I was inside the next building to catch myself up.  But then I would have missed hearing crucial directions, which would not have been good, either.  Another disappointment was that the last stop on the tour, the Harold Washington Library, was closed on the day that we were there (since it was the Friday after Thanksgiving), so we were not able to complete the last section (although I finished listening to the audio anyway).  I do wish that the Poetry Foundation had put a note on the site letting us know that some of the tour would take place inside public buildings, or that I had thought to check whether all of those buildings would be open when we planned to be in Chicago.  If you do try out the tour yourself, definitely take this extra planning step before heading out to the city.  I can’t tell you how disappointing it was to get to the last stop and find it all dark and locked up.

A few more recommendations.  First, do check the weather before you attempt the tour.  For a late November day, the morning on which we took the tour was gorgeous (40-50 degrees and sunny).  As we are all 20-something-year-old graduate students, we didn’t much mind the cold.  But I could see the tour (most of which is outdoors) being absolutely miserable in the depths of winter, especially if you plan to bring children or more elderly adults along with you.  Even on the day we went, the wind really began to nip at us after a while, and we were all very grateful to walk into the warm subway station afterward.  Perhaps late spring or early summer would have been a more optimal time of year to take the tour.  Secondly, pack light.  It’s only 45 minutes, but it is all walking. My friends, who were carrying their luggage (their hostel was in Lincoln Park, so we’d thought we would take the tour before heading out there to check them in), found it a bit awkward to maneuver in and out.  In particular, the part of the tour that’s in the Fine Arts Building recommends that you walk down 10 flights of stairs to better experience the interior architectural details.  Obviously, that would have been kind of hellish with luggage. So we took the elevator—which is cool, anyway, because it’s old-fashioned and has no inner door so that you see all the floors rushing past, and has an operator sitting inside.  If you have small kids, a lot of bags, or not enough time to walk down 10 flights, please save yourself the trouble and take the elevator.  Finally, feel free to stray a bit (hitting “pause” until you come back to where you left off), and take advantage of the points on the tour when they recommend that you pause and check something out.  We didn’t have enough time to go inside the Art Institute’s galleries because we hadn’t planned on it, and ended up just visiting the museum shop.  We did stop into Millenium Park and took photos by the Bean sculpture, which was totally worth it.  But if I’d known the Art Institute would be on the tour ahead of time, I would have made plans to see the galleries, too, and I definitely recommend that you do so if you go.  Their collections are purportedly amazing.

Finally, if you can’t make it to Chicago to take the tour in person, the Poetry Foundation also has a virtual version of the tour in its web site.  Not the same as being physically inside the buildings themselves, but also very cool— especially the feature that allows you to choose from a list of the poems and poets featured in the audio.

So that you can get a feel for the beauty of the buildings included on the tour, here are some photos I took at the various stops.

Stop 1: Chicago Cultural Center

Stop 2: Art Institute

Stop 4: Fine Arts Building (and its amazing elevator!)

Stop 6: Harold Washington Library (exterior; the building was closed)

Despite the minor disappointments that I mentioned earlier, the tour was all in all a lovely experience, and I am definitely eager to return to the city later this school year in order to try out the other portions of it (perhaps when the snow begins to melt).