Poetry Open Mic 

Come be part of our amazing poetry community! Sign up to read a poem when you arrive, but get your tickets in advance so we know how many chairs to set up! Not a writer? That is ok! Folks who just love to listen to poetry are highly encouraged to attend! Enjoy as part of the audience, discover our diverse local literary talent and provide them with valuable feedback on their work! Admission $5

Hosted by Sara Ries Dziekonski 

This month's featured poet is Thomas Sayers Ellis. He is the author of The Maverick Room, Skin, Inc,: Identity Repair Poems, Crank Shaped Notes and Mexico.  He co-founded The Dark Room Collective in 1989. His poems and photographs have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, The Nation, and Best American Poetry.  In 2015, he co-founded Heroes Are Gang Leaders, a literary Free Jazz band who were awarded the American Book Award for Oral Literature in 2018. HAGL has performed in Paris, Berlin, Gdansk, The Hague, New York City and Lisbon. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship in Poetry. In 2025, RogueArt will release Downtown Crown in the Key of Royalty, a tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat, recorded live at the Paris Philharmonie. TSE relocated to St. Pete in 2016 and was named its first Photo Laureate in 2023. The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) will host his solo exhibition, June 20 to August 4, 2024 and Paradise Paradise Layered, a limited-edition book of photographs, is forthcoming from SPMOP.

Date: Wednesday, May 29th

Time: 7:00-9:00pm

Location: The Studio@620 (620 1st Ave S. St. Pete) 

Cost: Admission $5