What’s that racket?: poetry month kicks off in Denver

Fast-talkers armed with pens and Waldman paperbacks are making noise in the streets, on buses, at coffee shops and allover town for poetry month, which officially began three days ago. From the slam crowd to Boulderite neo-beats to fiction-writers-who-sound-like-poets to the academics to otherwise-undefined-guy/girl-stringing-words-together, there’s a lot to listen in to. Copper Nickel, a journal that over the years has published some of the best local stuff by both celebrity and otherwise unpublished poets, is in its 9th issue with plans to release a special issue this October focusing on Women Writing in the West. The Denver Slam Team has gained even greater (and hard-earned) recognition during the past year, and many of their members are active in keeping the spoken word fresh with vibrant open-mic programs (Pretty Boy School of Public Speaking at Common Grounds, for example). And any month of the year, at a little known gem of a bookstore in the Old South Pearl Street District called, Book Buffs, one can almost always count on finding the shelves tight with the newest edition from a local publisher or author as well as out-of-print editions by literary giants like Kathy Acker (who, as rumor has it, more than once rode her motorcycle through this town).

Want to be festive this April?

-Wash behind your ears, put on your beatnik best and swing by these events-

FRIDAY APRIL 4TH, 6-9PM: Performances on street corners at the Santa Fe Art District. Interested participants should meet at the Democratic Party Office, 777 Santa Fe Dr.

SATURDAY APRIL 12TH, 1-5PM: Reading featuring Julie Carr and Mackenzie Carignan, and a poetry ephemera swap hosted with Potlatch Poetry at the Dikeou Collection, 1615 California St, Suite 515. Attendees are strongly encouraged to bring old books, lit. journals and chapbooks to trade with others.

TUESDAY APRIL 15TH, NOON: Student Literary Festival hosted with Copper Nickel, featuring CU Denver students, at St. Cajetan’s Church, on Auraria Campus

-Check out hot local poetry (and fiction too!)-

The Frequencies by Noah Eli Gordon
A Murmuration of Starlings by Jake Adam York
The Exquisite by Laird Hunt
The Meat and Spirit Plan by Selah Saterstrom
Apostrophe by Elizabeth Robinson
North True, South Bright by Dan Beachy-Quick
The Monster Lives of Boys and Girls by Eleni Sikelianos
Equivocal by Julie Carr
Lug Your Careless Body out of the Careful Dusk by Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Super Cell Anemia by Duncan Barlow
Incubation: A Space for Monsters by Bhanu Kapil
Matter by Bin Ramke
DaZE by Matthew Cooperman
scenic fences houses innumerable by Aby Kaupang

-Get savvy-

The Denver Quarterly www.denverquarterly.com
Copper Nickel www.copper-nickel.org
Colorado Review coloradoreview.colostate.edu/cr/index.html
PotLatch Poetry www.potlatchpoetry.org
Sleeping Fish www.sleepingfish.net
Naropa University Audio Archives www.archive.org/details/naropa
Colorado Poets www.coloradopoets.org
Denver Gov Month of Poetry Info http://www.denvergov.org/DenverPoetLaureate/HomePage/AprilPoetryMonthinD...