Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.
At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877
Sunayna Pal‘s poetry graces the pages of numerous international journals, anthologies, museums, poetry festivals, textbooks, buses, and libraries, resonating with readers across the globe. Her debut book, Refugees in Their Own Country (B&W Fountain), tells the Partition of India in verse and illustrations. Her second book, Please Go to the Park (Bottlecap Press), is an invitation to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Beyond her writing, Sunayna serves as the Director of The Poetry Academy and is dedicated to Heartfulness meditation. For a deeper insight into her work and journey, please visit sunaynapal.com. She lives in Maryland with her family.
Henry Crawford is the author of three collections of poetry: American Software, published in May of 2017 by CW Books, his second collection, Binary Planet, was published by The Word Works in March of 2020 and released as a 2nd Edition in 2022. Screens, (Broadstone Books, 2025), is Crawford’s most recent full collection of poems. His poem, “The Fruits of Famine,” won first prize in the 2019 World Food Poetry Competition. His work has been published in Boulevard, Copper Nickel, Rattle, the Southern Humanities Review, and many others. He is a two time finalist for the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. He was nominated for the 2022 Rhysling Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. He is a longtime co-host of the Café Muse Literary Salon Online and producer of Poets vs The Pandemic (during the COVID years).
He Writes on Substack at https://everydaypoet.substack.com/.
DiVerse Gaithersburg 