D. A. “Roarshock” Wilson is a San Francisco poet, storyteller and spoken word artist. The author of ‘First Hours of a Rainy Day and Other Poems’ and publisher of ‘Roarshock Page’, a literary street flier. He performs regularly, in person and via the social web, and can be found online at http://www.roarshock.net
Rufo Quintavalle was born in London in 1978, studied at Oxford and the University of Iowa and now lives in Paris. He is the author of ten books of poetry, the most recent of which, Shelf, is a line-by-line rewrite of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”. He has taught creative writing at NYU Paris, has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and in 2019 was chosen to represent Paris in the final of the Trans Europe Expression Poetry Slam. Rufo is also an actor; you can see him in Coldhearts: a poetical and Les passagers de la nuit which premiered at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. He is currently working on the Apple TV+ series, The New Look.
Anthony Thomas Lombardi is a Pushcart-nominated poet, editor, organizer, and educator. He is the founder and director of Word is Bond, a community-centered reading series partnered with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop that raises funds for transnational relief efforts, bail funds, and mutual aid organizations, and currently serves as a poetry editor for Sundog Lit. He has taught for Borough of Manhattan Community College, Brooklyn Poets, Polyphony Lit’s Summer Editorial Apprenticeship Program, and community programming throughout New York City. A recipient of the Poetry Project’s Emerge-Surface-Be Fellowship, his work has appeared or will soon in the Poetry Foundation’s Ours Poetica, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Dilla.
As always the theme is there to inspire you, and if it doesn’t then feel free to ignore it.
the return to? the return from? the return of? what exactly was/has/will be returned?
re-entry?
back to Paris and the Chat Noir after a summer of wandering, wondering, scheming and squandering? after a summer of adventure, misadventure or just… things to put down to experience and never do again?
Chris Burke is an English-Irish writer whose debut collection of poetry, The Noise of Everything at Once,was published by Happy House Books in 2017. He won second prize in the 2020 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and has been longlisted multiple times in the UK National Poetry Competition, while his works have appeared in magazines including Southword, Antiphon, Prole and the French Literary Review. He also leads a second life as a journalist, reporting on football in France and around Europe.
Janine Booth is a ranting, rhyming, revolting poet, recently relocated from London to the South Downs. She delivers poetry formal and free, serious and silly, political and personal. Janine`s work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and in several books of her own poetry. She performs around the UK and beyond, at poetry nights, festivals, picket lines and the monthly Spoken Word Lewes.
Yazmin Monet Watkins is a poet, comedian, writer, actress, educator and organizer. Touring her intimate yet political poetry from Obama’s White House to Johannesburg, and empowering students from Harvard to youth prisons, Watkins’ body of work weaves art and activism, exploring the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, self-love and all things Black Girl Magic. A Posse scholar and a graduate of Dickinson College, Watkins’ work combines art and activism, providing critical artistic outlets for audiences to self advocate and heal. Watkins has developed pilots with Netflix and Comedy Central alongside Paul Downs, Lucia Aniello and her all Black female comedy group, Obama’s Other Daughters. You can see their work on their Comedy Central show and their Shondaland podcast You Down? Watkins serves as the co-chair of the Arts & Culture committee for Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. Once Beyoncé said she liked her hair.
Poet, essayist, fiction writer, playwright, art critic, translator, Serbian-born Nina Zivancevic published 17 books of poetry. She has also written three books of short stories, two novels and 2 books of essays published in Paris, New York and Belgrade. The recipient of many literary awards, a former assistant to Allen Ginsberg, she has also co-edited numerous anthologies of contemporary world poetry. She has contributed to New York Arts Magazine, Modern Painters, American Book Review, East Village Eye, Republique de lettres. She has lectured at Naropa University, New York University and the Harriman Institute in the U.S., she has taught British studies at La Sorbonne and the History of Avant-garde Theatre at Paris 8 University in France.She has actively worked for theatre ( with the “Living Theatre”in NYC) and radio( 4 of her plays were emitted in the U.S. and Great Britain). She lives and works in Paris.
Unfortunately Sophia has Covid and can’t perform because she might still be contagious.
So… this event will now include an OPEN MIC section, as announced at SpokenWord on Monday.
The open mic will follow the sets by David Barnes (poetry from his forthcoming book) and Kristina Vaughan (songs from her first and forthcoming second album, plus a few covers).
Sign up for the open mic from 7pm at L’Impasse, 4 cité Griset, round the corner from the Chat Noir. Métro Ménilmontant or Parmentier.