by | Jan 28, 2025 12:36 pm | Comments (2)
Leigh Busby Photo
Shaunda Holloway at Monday's opening reception. Below: reciting one of her poems.
Paint met rhythm Monday night at an opening reception in Westville for a new exhibition by a New Haven artist.
Continue reading ‘Shaunda Holloway Sings The Canvas Electric’
by | Jan 27, 2025 9:28 am | Comments (0)
Leigh Busby Photo
Legacy Girls -- Jasmine Johnson, Sonetta Lynn, and Kayla Morton -- perform at the second monthly edition of Tempo.
“When I say ‘word,’” Frank E. Brady told the crowd, “say the first word that comes the top of your head.”
by | Jan 21, 2025 10:07 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Host Croilot; “Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready for a slam?”
The Z Experience Poetry Slam on Monday saw a lot of changes from previous years, in introducing new hosts and a new competition format. But its commitments to making voices heard, diving deep into tough issues, and building community remained as central and strong as ever.
by | Jan 6, 2025 1:10 pm | Comments (6)
Contributed Photo
Renee Hartman got the last laugh on Adolf Hitler.
by | Dec 11, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Baub Bidon: "We didn't sue another rapper, we just battled."
On Friday, Free 2 Spit celebrated the completion of its 20th year holding down an open mic for New Haven’s spoken-word scene at the New Haven Peoples Center on Howe Street, with a night that drew newcomers, seasoned New Haven-based poets, and voices from one state over alike to share the mic and their words, heating up a wintery night.
by | Aug 26, 2024 9:15 am | Comments (1)
Leo Slattery Photos
Thirty vendors in a crescent surrounded a central green area. From the stage, a rotating selection of spoken word, music, and dancing was interspersed with an ongoing set from DJ Tunes. Off to the side of the stage, activities and crafts were available, including free tie-dyeing and a community banner. People of all ages darted around, chatting with vendors or people they recognized.
by | Jun 19, 2024 9:13 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photo
Brain Robinson: “Everyone should have the experience to be creative and test the waters."
When Brian Robinson entered the side room of Never Ending Books, he greeted everyone seated there as if they were old friends, and most of them probably were. Robinson’s weekly Tuesday night Open Mic Surgery event, a poetry open mic, is all about fostering community and poets building each other up, not just as poets, but as friends.
by | May 24, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery photo
Allie Bee stood in front of an admiring audience in the downstairs space of Westville’s Third Space. Tracks they’d made themself played behind them as they took their time unfurling melodies they’d written on bass. The first one, groovy, insistent, they said, was called “Wayward Giant.” The second one, hazier and jazzier, was called “Blue Moon,” named after a smoothie of the same name that they’d made at work.
“Inspiration comes in weird places,” they said.
An enthusiastic voice came from the back: “Yeah it does!”
by | Mar 13, 2024 9:59 am | Comments (4)
Brian Slattery Photos
Elicker and Little.
On Tuesday evening City Hall resounded with beats, verses, and reminiscences, as spoken-word artist Sharmont “Influence” Little was proclaimed New Haven’s first poet laureate.
by | Mar 8, 2024 9:32 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Laureate Little with King/Robinson students.
Fifth-grader Aly Gaye knew where to start when New Haven’s poet laureate asked him to write verses about himself: My power lies in my brain, in my smarts.
by | Feb 21, 2024 8:48 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Ross Gay: "The hope is to be unmade in the process.”
Ross Gay practiced what he preaches last night at Possible Futures, as the poet, essayist, and teacher offered a grateful crowd a selection of his work encompassing joy and tenderness that brought them from rapt silence to riotous laughter and everywhere in between.
by | Jan 29, 2024 9:05 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
IfeMichelle Gardin offers gratitude.
The Bricks in Hamden was the place to be on Saturday night, as literature fans gathered to fete author and civil rights movement icon James Baldwin — and the beginning of a year’s worth of programming based on his works — helmed by IfeMichelle Gardin and her Kuturally Lit organization.
by | Jan 24, 2024 12:12 pm | Comments (0)
Freewrite revolutionary: New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont "Influence" Little at WNHH FM.
New Year’s/Inauguration Day
Twenty Twenty-Four
Boring speeches
Left us snoring
Like captives wilting
In the auditorium
For an hour. Plus an hour
by | Jan 16, 2024 9:42 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Slam host Ngoma.
Memories of the Children’s Crusade. A vision of alien visitations in the future. Invocations of superheroes. Fist-raising calls for change. These were all part of the 28th annual Z Experience Poetry Slam on Monday, part of the Yale Peabody Museum’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s legacy of social and environmental justice.
by | Nov 9, 2023 9:25 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio photo
Map sketching and nature journaling in East Rock.
East Rock Park on a sunny November Saturday was an idyllic setting for the most recent New Haven Nature Journal Club meet-up. The biweekly event focuses on gathering in natural settings to witness, observe, and document the surroundings through drawings and writings, with a bit of guidance and a bunch of support.
The group, led by Madelyn Neufeld, meets on Saturday mornings twice a month: once in East Rock Park and two weeks later at another location that changes each time. Neufeld started this club back in August after researching the Wild Wonder Foundation — which provides free nature journal resources — and finding no groups in Connecticut.
Continue reading ‘Nature Journal Club Draws From "Urban Oasis"’
by | Oct 3, 2023 10:41 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Gray Photo
At Bloom-hosted Afrogalactic Tea Party.
The description online read: “In this ephemeral haven of sonic and poetic delights, the Afrogalactic Tea Party invites you to immerse yourself in a curated experience of taste and culture.”
The Sunday afternoon event at the flower and lifestyle shop Bloom on Central Avenue in Westville was part of the ongoing 6th Dimension Afrofuturism festival, a series of art exhibits, talks, screenings, and other gatherings running now through Oct. 25.
I love a tea party, and coupling one with Afrofuturism intrigued me, so I headed to the festival website to grab a ticket, which was pretty reasonable at $23. I wasn’t sure what to expect.
by | Sep 27, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (0)
The cover of Never Ending Poetry.
On the last page of the new poetry anthology Never Ending Poetry — a celebration of the first year of Open Mic Surgery, the poetry reading series that happens almost every Tuesday at Never Ending Books on State Street — there’s an incisive poem by Alice Prael about a barrel in a field on fire, melting plastic. “Polymers propagating / intimate inanity / inane intimacy,” she writes. “It’s poison but it’s warm.” On the same page is a poem called “Ode to Baby Jesus” by Julie Meehan. “You’ll get nailed down,” she writes, “but you’ll get up again / They’re never gunna nail you down.”
The juxtaposition is just fine by Brian Robinson, who runs Open Mic Surgery and put together the anthology. “I love that one poem is a beautiful, really elegant” piece, “and then the last poem is an adaptation of a Chumbawumba song about Jesus,” Robinson said. To him, “that’s the dichotomy” of Open Mic Surgery itself. “Nothing is off the table.”
Continue reading ‘Poetry Open Mic Celebrates Anniversary With Anthology’
by | Aug 31, 2023 8:09 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
On one side of Hotchkiss Street at the intersection of Edgewood Avenue on Wednesday evening, along the side of the bookstore Possible Futures, a DJ on the corner pumped out irresistible grooves while friends greeted one another, browsed books, and snacked on empanadas and mimosas.
On the other side of the street was a cheerful sign that read “Happy 75th Birthday Fred!” with a timeline laid out beneath it. The Fred in question is none other than Fred Hampton, Black Panther Party leader and revolutionary.
Continue reading ‘Community Carries Fred Hampton's Ideas Forward’
by | Aug 24, 2023 9:06 am | Comments (0)
Nick Aubin performs at Gather.
“Nice to see a lot of familiar faces, nicer to see the unfamiliar faces,” said Nick Aubin, the host of a weekly Open Mic Night at Gather, located at 952 State St. The coffee shop brimmed with faces, open and smiling, many of them ready to play multiple roles over the course of the evening: performer, fan, and friend. At their core, open mics form a hub for the community, a safe space for artists familiar and unfamiliar, veteran and newcomer, to showcase their creativity.
by | Jul 28, 2023 8:46 am | Comments (2)
Zoe Jensen Photo
Issue 11 cover featuring coeditor Mar Pelaez.
Connectic*nt, a bimonthly zine that has created a space for artists and writers from across the state to experiment with words and visuals — as well as an ever-growing community that thrives on sharing with and uplifting each other — turns two years old this month. The anniversary issue, the zine’s 11th, will be released this Saturday, July 29, complete with celebratory events including a DJ-centric dance party (now famously known as Club C*nt) at Diesel Lounge on Friday night and a zine fair at Bradley Street Bike Co-op on Sunday.
Under the helm of current coeditors Zoe Jensen and Mar Pelaez, the publication has come a long way from Jensen’s original plan of publishing a single zine that included the art and writing of friends who had been distanced from each other during Covid shutdowns. The public demand for more, and the fun being had by everyone involved, was too much to not let it become a regular and permanent part of the new normal.
by | Jun 20, 2023 8:57 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
The dancers in the circle were lifting up their own spirits and the spirits of those around them. They were participating in a culture that was now in its third generation of practitioners. And, as was explained, they were helping strengthen and preserve it; if they didn’t, they could lose it.
Continue reading ‘Conference Gives Master Class In Hip Hop History’
by | Jun 15, 2023 8:14 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak Photos
Rudy Ru performs at Arts & Ideas Adult Invitational Poetry Slam.
“That was a poet, and that was a poem,” said Influence, the host of the Adult Invitational Poetry Slam — part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in partnership with The Word — held at Yale’s Schwarzman Center on Wednesday afternoon. In this way he followed up each of the 10 artists who performed their spoken word poetry: a simple acknowledgement that nevertheless conveyed a deep respect for the art form.
by | May 31, 2023 8:35 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak Photos
Robinson and unicorn.
Brian Robinson, organizer of Open Mic Surgery, the poetry open mic running for almost a year at Never Ending Books, walked into the State Street spot carrying a giant unicorn-shaped piñata. “You don’t leave a dog in the car.… I’m not going to leave a unicorn in the car,” he explained. “It could get hot.”
Continue reading ‘Open Mic Surgery Brings Poems And Piñatas’
by | Mar 21, 2023 8:15 am | Comments (2)
Brian Slattery Photos
Nzima Hutchings at Monday's "Fred Hampton 101" workshop.
The thoughts and deeds of a young fallen revolutionary became fuel for poetic pursuits Monday evening at Possible Futures, the bookstore and meeting place on Edgewood Avenue, as Nyzae James and Nzima Hutchings led a dozen participants through “Fred Hampton 101,” a presentation that was part history, part poetry workshop, and all community building.
Continue reading ‘Possible Futures Takes Pride In Fred Hampton’
by | Jan 17, 2023 8:49 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Ngoma Hill at Monday's poetry slam.
On Monday afternoon, halfway through the Z Experience Poetry Slam, host Ngoma Hill remarked that this year — the event’s 27th — saw the event’s biggest turnout yet. It was a fitting return to in-person form for the slam, in honor of community organizer Zannette Lewis, as poets filled the O.C. Marsh Lecture Hall in the Yale Science Building and, for a few hours, turned it into one of the hottest slams on the East Coast.