Come celebrate National Poetry Month during first annual Kentucky Poetry Month, sponsored by the University of Kentucky's MFA in Creative Writing!

2015 Kentucky Poetry Festival Events

April 24 - May 01

• Off the Ground Featuring Bianca Lynne Spriggs

  • Common Grounds on High Street

  • Friday April 24, 2015

  • 7:30pm

  • Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem Fellow, Bianca Lynne Spriggs is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky. She is the author of Kaffir Lily (Wind Publications, 2010), How Swallowtails Become Dragons (Accents Publishing, 2011), and the forthcoming titles, Call Her By Her Name (Northwestern University Press, 2016), The Galaxy is a Dance Floor (Argos Books, 2016), and Circe's Lament: An Anthology of Wild Women (Accents Publishing, 2015). Her work may be found in numerous journals and anthologies. Open mic to follow!
    
     

• KFP College Showcase

  • James F. Hardymon Theater, inside the Davis Marksbury Building on the UK's campus, 329 Rose Street

  • Saturday April 25, 2015

  • 2:00pm

  • Creative writing college students from around Kentucky will read their poetry.

• A Reading by Louisvillian Poets, feat. Jeremy Clark, Adam Day, Lynnell Edwards, Michael Estes, and Martha Greenwald

  • James F. Hardymon Theater, inside the Davis Marksbury Building on the UK's campus, 329 Rose Street

  • Saturday April 25, 2015

  • 7:00pm

  • Louisville Poets will read their work.

• Verse in Type

  • Clark Art & Antique, 801 Winchester Rd, Lexington, KY 40505

  • Sunday April 26th

  • 3:00pm

  • Broadside display from the King Library Press.

• UK Libraries King Library Spring Seminar

  • Boone Center

  • Tuesday April 28th

  • 7:00pm

  • Dara Wier and Emily Pettit will lecture for the King Library as Keynote Speakers. King Library Press Broadside Contest Award winner will read.
    
     

• Waxing Gastronomic: Food Poetry Open Mic

  • Donut Days on Southland

  • Wednesday April 29

  • 4:00pm

• Dara Wier & Emily Pettit, Visiting Writers Series

  • UK Art Museum

  • Wednesday April 29th

  • 7:00pm

  • Dara Wier is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including You Good Thing (Wave Books, 2013); Selected Poems (2009); Remnants of Hannah (2006); Reverse Rapture (2005), and many others. She teaches workshops and form and theory seminars and directs the M.F.A. program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

  • Emily Pettit is the author of Goat in the Snow (Birds LLC), and two chapbooks How (Octopus Books) and What Happened to Limbo (Pilot Books). Her poems can be found in Skein, Thethe, Sixth Finch, Wolf in a Field, Le Petite Zine, Forklift Ohio, Glitterpony, Diagram, Octopus, H_ngM_n and elsewhere.  She has a MFA from the University of Iowa where she was a Maytag Fellow. She teaches writing and literature at Elms College, poetry workshops at Flying Object and is publisher and editor of jubilat (the literary magazine) and at factory hollow press.She is an editor for notnostrums (notnostrums.com) and Factory Hollow Press. More poems can be found online (Octopus, Sixth Finch, Strange Machine) and in print (Invisible Ear, and, soon, Skein and SUPERMACHINE.)

• Holler, featuring Normandi Ellis, Roger Bonair-Agard, AlexanderSings

  • Al’s Bar

  • Wednesday April, 29, 2015

  • 8:00 PM

  • Open mic starts at 8:00pm

  • We celebrate national poetry month with the return of Normandi Ellis, author of Words on Water, and the debut of two-time National Poetry Slam Champion, Roger Bonair-Agard, his latest Bury My Clothes, a long list finalist for the National Book Award. Providing music is Louisville based old time/folk artist AlexanderSings! Alejandro Udisco Kentucki). As usual open mic opens and closes the show. Bring some extra bones for the Holler bucket. Support your local arts. See y'all there!
    
     

• Write or Die Poetry Slam (Presented by Bianca Spriggs/Hosted by the Raven House)

  • Ravenhouse 3229 Raven Cir, Lexington, Kentucky

  • Thursday April 30, 2015

  • 8:30pm, doors open at 8:00pm

  • Eight poets from around the state and region will compete in a three-round elimination spoken word competition for a first prize of $500 (sponsored by The Morris Book Shop) and a second prize of $300 (Sponsored by UnderMain). The feature and celebrity judge for the night is award-winning poet, Roger Bonair-Agard. Opening musical performances by Designer Flow and J. Cannon. DJ Warren Peace will be on the one's and two's. And special bonus, Thomas Kirkland, veteran slam emcee, will be dusting off his mic for the occasion! There will be a full spread, BYOB. Admission is $20. Capacity is 80 attendees, so get there early for this fast-paced, one-of-a-kind event! You can purchase tix in advance here: http://theravenhouse.brownpapertickets.com. A portion of the proceeds will go towards each of the performers that night as well as the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning!

• Roger Bonair-Agard Interview

  • William T. Young Auditorium

  • Thursday April 30th, 2015

  • 5:30pm

  • Poet and spoken-word artist Roger Bonair-Agard was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the United States in 1987. His collections of poetry include Tarnish and Masquerade (2006); Gully (2010); and Bury My Clothes (2013), which was a long-list finalist for a National Book Award. A Cave Canem fellow, Bonair-Agard performs his work and leads workshops internationally. He is the cofounder and artistic director of the louderARTS Project and teaches poetry at the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Facility in Chicago.
    
     

• Ekphrastic Poetry Prize DEADLINE

• The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky and the University of Kentucky MFA Program in Creative Writing present The Kentucky Poetry Festival’s Ekphrastic Poetry Prize. First prize: $100. Deadline: May 01st. Entries must pertain to the permanent collection, or a current or past exhibit at The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. Please indicate the name of the work and the artist’s name with entry. Contest is open to all poets, excluding current MFA poetry students at the University of Kentucky. Entrants may submit up to 3 poems as a single attached file with the format firstname_lastname2015 to: kpfpoetrycontest@gmail.com. For inquiries contact us at kpfpoetrycontest@gmail.com

• Poetry in the Greenhouses

  • Michler's Florist, Greenhouses & Garden Design, 417 E Maxwell St, Lexington, KY 40508

  • Friday, May 01

  • 5:30pm

  • Readings by Steven Alvarez, Dan Howell, Leatha Kendrick, George Ella Lyon, Maurice Manning, Christopher McCurry, Kimberly Miller, Gurney Norman, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Richard Taylor, and Jeff Worley
  • Open mic to follow.