Celebrate National Poetry Month with Poetry in the Boro and MTSU Write as we offer a special weekend of free events with visiting poet C.T. Salazar on April 20 and 21! Participate in one or both! Please note, preregistration is required for the Saturday workshop.
Saturday, April 20
Radical Approaches to the Line: A Workshop on Headlessness with C.T. Salazar
10am-noon, MTSU’s Academic Classroom Building (ACB) 118
C.T. Salazar says:
Lately I’ve been in awe of how lyric poems are capable of both articulating despair and making a poem-wide space. While the poetic line and despair itself are long reckoned with, how we reimagine the line speaks to our capacity to continue building a space for ourselves and others despite despair. Where do our minds go when this is accomplished? How do we inform the poem that informs us? What are the parts of the poem’s ecology that make this unique relationship with despair, and with ourselves possible? Ultimately, how are poets using the poetic line to make this space possible, to push further possibility? In this generative workshop, we’ll think through possibilities for lineation. We’ll look to Audre Lorde, Jenny Johnson, Agha Shahid Ali, C.D. Wright, and others before attempting our own lyric poems capable of reckoning with our simultaneously collective and unique despair.
Pre-registration is required. Simply email mtsuwrite@mtsu.edu to reserve your spot!
About our visiting poet
C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. His debut collection Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking (Acre Books 2022) was named a finalist for the 2023 Theodore Roethke Memorial Award. C.T. is the author of three previous chapbooks, most recently American Cavewall Sonnets (Bull City Press 2021). His past awards include the 2020 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award and the AWP Intro Journals Award. His most recent poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, West Branch, Denver Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, and 32 Poems. C.T. is a Research Methods Librarian and assistant professor at Delta State University.
Sunday, April 21
Doors open 5:30; program at 6:00, Dapper Owl Coffee Pub
Listen to some poetry—or share some writing of your own—at Poetry in the Boro at Dapper Owl on Sunday evening, April 21. Our feature will be C.T. Salazar.
The Dapper Owl coffee pub 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. We’ll have an update on any special menu offerings closer to the event date.
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.
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:
analyze | alternate | record | rainbow | rocket | supine | anthem | chair | enchant | tenacious
Your donations are appreciated
ADMISSION TO THESE EVENTS IS FREE. A DONATION of $5 or more 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.