Enjoy listening to poetry and storytelling—or share some writing of your own—with a slightly-pre-solstice edition of Poetry in the Boro on Thursday evening, December 19. Our features will be poet Sandy Coomer and storyteller Kara Kemp, with another guest or two from the Bloom Stage, a quarterly storytelling event founded by Kara. An hour of open mic follows the features.
We’ll be at the Walnut House, 116 N. Walnut. This event is free and open to the public, thanks to support from MTSU Write. Water, soda, beer and cider will be available for purchase from the Walnut House; cash and credit accepted.
Doors open at 6:30 PM. After the features, there’s time to mingle and purchase books before our open mic time begins. Readers can share one piece of poetry or spoken word. Reading a favorite poem by another writer is fine, too. If your piece is over 4 minutes, please speak to the hosts to see if we can accommodate that.
Street parking is available for the Walnut House along Walnut, Main and College. There are no parking time limits enforced after 5 PM.
WORD CHALLENGE: You may want to write about solstice and the “longest night” in some way; or use one or more of these words chosen by last month’s audience:
prison | usurp | frozen | complications | holiday | dolphin | shudder | stun | swirl | & light bath (or Lightbath, the musical artist?)
ABOUT OUR FEATURES
SANDY COOMER is a poet, artist, Ironman athlete, and social entrepreneur from Nashville, TN. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Available Light (Iris Press). Sandy is a poetry mentor in the AWP Writer to Writer Mentorship Program and the founding editor of the online poetry journal Rockvale Review. She is the founder and director of Rockvale Writers’ Colony in College Grove, TN, a not-for-profit organization that exists to support, promote, and educate writers of all genres and backgrounds. Her favorite word is “believe.”
KARA J. KEMP is a storyteller, creative leader, and culture builder who lives in Murfreesboro. A frequent contributor to the open mic and outreach projects of Poetry in the Boro, she is also the founder and producer of a national, award-winning storytelling event, United We Style, benefiting United Way, as well as co-creator and producer of the Bloom Stage, a multi-genre storytelling platform. Using her eclectic career experience, Kara coaches individuals and organizations to harness the power of storytelling for better communication, collaboration and success. Her favorite phrase is “don’t shrink.”