Listen to some poetry—or share some writing of your own—at Poetry in the Boro on Thursday evening, December 21, when we brighten the longest night with our words. Our feature will be Erin Hoover, author of No Spare People from Black Lawrence Press, and other works. Learn more about Erin below.
We’re thrilled to be at Dapper Owl, a coffee pub that opened earlier this year. It is located at 2412 East Main St. just past its intersection with Rutherford Blvd., on the east side of the MTSU campus. Doors open for mingling and refreshments at 5:30 PM. (Please note: doors will not open until 5:30–the staff will be doing a soft close to their regular day and preparing to reopen just for us.)
The feature will be at 6:00, with open mic to follow. Drip coffee and light snacks will be available at no charge. However, we hope that you’ll order from Dapper Owl’s tasty menu to help make this a winning collaboration for all of us! Their menu includes coffee, tea, beer, cider, and baked goods.
UPDATE: Help our evening go smoothly…pre-order your favorite drink and/or food item from the menu! Use the form at bit.ly/dapper-poetry
About the open mic
Open mic readers can share poetry or spoken word: 2 poems or four minutes, whichever comes first. Reading a favorite poem by another writer is fine, too. Sign up for the open mic on site.
We ask that readers be prepared to keep their pieces “PG-13” depending on our venue and audience, which sometimes includes younger people.
About our feature
Erin Hoover was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She is the author of two poetry collections: Barnburner (Elixir, 2018), which won the Antivenom Poetry Award and a Florida Book Award, and No Spare People (Black Lawrence, 2023). Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry and in journals such as Cincinnati Review, Poetry Northwest, Shenandoah, and The Sun. Hoover lives in Tennessee and teaches creative writing at Tennessee Tech University. She curates and hosts a poetry reading series, Sawmill Poetry, and produces the “Not Abandon, but Abide” monthly interview series for the Southern Review of Books. Visit her website at erinhooverpoet.com.
Challenge words
Here are our challenge words, chosen by our community at our last gathering. If you like, write a new piece to share that includes one, some, or ALL of these words:
cinnamon | pun | play | survive | dry | puppet | elongate | thanks | xerox | winter
Your donations are appreciated
ADMISSION IS FREE. A DONATION of $5 is appreciated to help us offset our costs. You can donate using PayPal at paypal.me/poetryintheboro. We also accept donations on site.
Poetry in the Boro thanks MTSU Write and the Rutherford Arts Alliance for their on-going partnerships and support.