Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.
Casey Community Center, 1 mile north of Shady Grove Metro on 355
810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877
Alison Palmer is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Bargaining with the Fall (Broadstone Books, January 2023), the poetry chapbook, Everything Is Normal Here (Broadstone Books, 2022), and the poetry chapbook, The Need for Hiding, (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). Among numerous distinctions, Alison is the recipient of a 2022 Independent Artist Award (IAA) grant by the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC). She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and she was awarded the Emma Howell Memorial Poetry Prize from Oberlin College. You can find her on the web: www.alisonpalmer.org.
Joseph Ross is the author of five books of poetry: Crushed & Crowned (2023), Raising King (2020), Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013) and Meeting Bone Man (2012). His poems appear in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Xavier Review, Poet Lore, Fledgling Rag, The Langston Hughes Review, and the 2022 anthology, WHERE WE STAND: Poems of Black Resilience. He won the 2012 Pratt Library / Little Patuxent Review Prize for his poem “If Mamie Till Was the Mother of God.” He currently serves on the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. He teaches English to high school students and writes regularly at www.JosephRoss.net.
Indran Amirthanayagam is a poet, editor, publisher, translator, youtube host and diplomat. He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. He has published twenty four poetry books, including Isleño (R.I.L. Editores), Blue Window (Ventana Azul) (trans. Jennifer Rathbun) (Diálogos Books), Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks.com), The Migrant States, Coconuts on Mars, The Elephants of Reckoning (winner 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize), Uncivil War and.The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems. He edits the Beltway Poetry Quarterly (www.beltwaypoetry.com) and writes https://indranamirthanayagam.blogspot.com. Amirthanayagam hosts The Poetry Channel https://youtube.com/user/indranam. New books include Powèt nan po la (Poet of the Port ) MadHat Press, 2023) and Origami:Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Diálogos Books, 2023)..
DiVerse Gaithersburg 