Open Secret! Open Mic @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais, 75005 Paris. At 8:30 all-night sign-up starts, & at 9 the spectacle. Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4).
Andrew Sweeny is a Canadian-born teacher, writer, musician, meditator, amateur philosopher, and poetic adventurer living in Versailles, France. He has spent the last years teaching at several Paris universities, writing and recording songs, scribbling poems, short stories and various unclassifiable literary. experiments. https://medium.com/@andrewpgsweeny
Carla Drysdale’s first full-length collection of poems, Little Venus, was published in 2009 by Tightrope Books in Toronto. Her first chapbook of poems, Inheritance, from Finishing Line Press came out in 2016. Her poems have appeared in such publications as Paris Press’s Spiraling, PRISM, the Literary Review of Canada & others. In 2014 she was awarded PRISM’s Earle Birney poetry prize. She is currently working on a novel. http://www.carladrysdale.com/

Launch event: 8pm Monday 3rd October at SpokenWord, au Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 métro Parmentier/Couronnes

Pre-order copies now by sending 12 euros to paypal associated with the email themag.paris@gmail.com

More info to follow soon.

Open Secret! Wednesdays (2nite!) @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais in Paris’ “Amor vincit omnia” quarter. At 8:30pm, open mic sign-up lights up like a Roman candle, & at 9pm, art explodes! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). Innovations in writing, song, comedy, performance art, theater, & dancing queenery! Join the celebration!

Tonight’s theme is “Calling all troubadours!” (But yes, any & all performers are welcome). What the heck does this Leo clown mean by this shout-out to music types? Lemme take a moment to ask him…OK? OK. Is music the universal language? (Or am I confusing that with math, or with wildly gesticulating with your hands?) Is it older than cave art? Dunno. Maybe drumming is. But music certainly uplifts us, non? Come have some fun!

Gowri K is a Tamil American poet, performing artist, teaching artist, and lawyer whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Sri Lanka. Her advocacy has addressed animal welfare, the environment, the rights of prisoners and the criminally accused in the U.S., and justice and accountability in Sri Lanka. Her publication credits include two peer-reviewed scientific journa articles and poetry appearing in Drunk In A Midnight Choir, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Bourgeon, Lantern Review, and Washington City Paper. She was a member of DC’s 2010 Southern Fried Slam team and has performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage (in 2013 and 2010), Capital Fringe Festival, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company events co-sponsored by the Poets and Writers Readings/Workshops programs. At the 2014 Atlas Intersections Festival,she produced and performed in “Yasmeen,” an original work co-written and co-produced by Huda Asfour, a Palestinian composer and musician.
She is a 2016 Kundiman fellow and serves as poetry coordinator at BloomBars, a poetry events host at Busboys and Poets, senior poetry editor at Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal, and co-editor of Beltway Poety Quaterly:

Open Secret! Wednesdays @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais (a secret passage that Tinder-dates both Boulevard Saint Germain & rue Lagrange – look for the Franprix-in-the-alley) 75005 Paris. 8:30 open mic sign-up buds, & at 9pm it blooms crazily as angel-headed sunflowers! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). Innovations in writing, song, comedy, performance art, theater, & dance, eeeeeven – strut yer proverbial stuff!

Our theme this week, inspired by our featured poet Raluca Petrescu’s fine, poignant, & masterful work, is “Words About Silence.” Her words acknowledge the presence of great poets of the past, from the classics to the moderns to more contemporary verse, but she creates a world of her own. Thought-provoking & inventive, she recites with the strong emphasis of an actor…with the driving force of sincere self-revelation, as well as honoring the power of silence. This is an event that if you miss, you may grow raaather sad about dat 😦 so come on over to Le Bistrot des Artistes for our warm weekly gathering!

Open Secret! Wednesdays @ Le Bistrot des Artistes, 6 rue des Anglais, in Paris’ 5th hood. 😉 8:30 open mic sign-up rustles “frou-frou” in the branches (envoy a texto to Rimbaud about dat sexy word) & at 9pm it promises gold & green forests! Métro Maubert-Mutualité (line 10) or Saint-Michel (line 4). Your own personal lab for experiments in writing, song, comedy, performance art, theater, & yes, as Rumi wrote, “Dance is silent poetry.” Sheikh yer booty! Dare to live wildly & love truly madly deeply! Our theme: “I always wanted to be famous, mommy!” Featuring musical duo Stanley Forbes (vocal/guitar) & Tony Wrafter (saxophone)…as well as controversial, crazyfunny comedian Regi Barris!

Bio’s:

Stanley Forbes, erstwhile curator of the Anti-Sobriety Variety Show, performs songs of death, light, love, and weapons, accompanied by legendary Bristol saxophonist Tony Wrafter.

Reginald Barris is a biracial, American stand-up comedian living in Vienna, Austria. His unique cultural perspective gives him an interesting take on race and a strong distaste for traditions and conventionality. His twisted sense of humor often dances on the line between acceptable and depraved, but the absurd logic behind his statements is enough to leave you in stitches!

See you 2nite at our infamous Wednesday soirée!

Jonathan Schiffman has established himself as a tolerated presence on the Paris SW stage. Originally from New York City, Jonathan received degrees from Yale and Juilliard, then came to France on a Fulbright Scholarship to study music, wine, psychedelic drugs and plenty of other shit. After his fellowship money ran out (much of it squandered on a single overpriced meal in the 16th arr.), Jonathan served as an assistant conductor to the Orchestre National de France and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Then Jonathan served as Music and Artistic Director of the Orchestra of Avignon where for three seasons he subjected his ever-dwindling public to a strict musical diet of Hindemith, Schoenberg and Philip Glass. After his unexpected firing, Jonathan pursued a freelance conducting career while devoting the remaining 95% of his time to the writing of a novel, or, more precisely, to the mental preparation necessary to one day sit down and write a novel. This novel will possibly be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the fall of 2017. Since 2014, Jonathan has been thrice elected to the SWIC (Spoken Word International Council), a governing body which formulates the rules and guidelines for all official Spoken Word chains and franchises. In addition, Jonathan is the co-founder of SW3 (recently defunct) and SW4 (moribund)