Join us to listen to some poetry—or share some writing of your own—at Poetry in the Boro at Dapper Owl on Sunday evening, Aug. 24, 2025. Our feature will be Nashville-area poet Annette Sisson. Read more about Annette below.
It’s a special night, as August marks our 9th anniversary–or, more auspiciously, the start to our 10th year! We’ve got some special plans this year in celebration!
The features will be at 6:00, with open mic to follow. Drip coffee and light nibbles 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, chips, baked goods, and artisan sandwiches from their grilled cheese station.
About the open mic
Open mic readers can share poetry or spoken word: 2 poems or four minutes, whichever comes first. (Please be aware that if we have a lot of sign-ups, we may ask that you read only 1 poem.) Reading a favorite poem by another writer is fine, too. Sign up for the open mic on site. Sign ups begin when doors open at 5:30. No early admittance.
We always ask that readers be prepared to keep their pieces “PG-13” depending on our venue and audience, which sometimes includes younger people.
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. Overflow parking is on the Arnold Lane side of the building – pull in perpendicular to the building to allow more cars to fit (careful of the AC unit!) or park on the side of road down Arnold Lane (please don’t block any driveways).
About our feature
Annette Sisson lives in Nashville, TN, where she has taught at Belmont University for 37 years. Her poems appear in The Penn Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Blue Mountain Review, and other journals and anthologies, including Terrapin’s What the House Knows and Tupelo’s Milkweed Anthology. Her second book, Winter Sharp with Apples, was published by Terrapin Books in October 2024, and her first, Small Fish in High Branches, was published by Glass Lyre Press in May 2022. In 2024 her poem “Deep in Milkweed” was a finalist for the Charles Simic Prize, and two others were
nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize.
Challenge words
If you like, write a new piece to share that includes one, some, or ALL of these words, selected by our audience at our last gathering:
exit | squeeze | calibrate | run | strengthen | tremble | jaguar | gazpacho | disingenuous | blinded | light
We rely on your donations
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.
For more local lit events and news
Check out the August writers mingle hosted by the Rutherford Arts Alliance, and the monthly Rutherford Arts Alliance lit-news blog by our team member Taffeta Chime!