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, April 26, 2026. Murfreesboro poet Wesley Houp, who some of you have heard at our open mic, will be our feature. Read more about Wes below.
The feature 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, and baked goods both sweet and savory.
Our new anthology will be available for sale at our events! $20 cash or Venmo preferred; PayPal also accepted. We’ll have a link for online sales posted soon.
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. Sign ups begin when doors open at 5:30. No early admittance.
While we welcome all styles of poetry, we ask that readers be prepared to keep their pieces “PG-13” depending on our 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
Wesley Houp’s first full length volume, Strung Out Along the Endless Branch, was selected by poet Greg Pape as winner of the James Baker Hall Book Award in 2024 and was published by Accents Publishing in May 2025. He has published widely over the years, including Black Warrior Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, and Chattahoochee Review. In 2025 his poems have appeared in the Kansas City Review and the anthology Tributarias from Dos Madres Press. He lives with his wife, Laura, in Murfreesboro.
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:
disingenuous | cinnamon | children | patch | future | hope | trudge | calcification | grandkids | catholic (in its non-church meaning, or Catholic as a proper noun, whichever you prefer)
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.
More local lit events and news
- April 12 – Writers Mingle at Dapper Owl
- Save the dates for other upcoming events:
- Thursday, May 7 – Bloom Stage at the Walnut House
- We’ll have all our summer dates posted soon.
Also check out the monthly Rutherford Arts Alliance lit-news blog by our team member Taffeta Chime!
