Author: Kristin Kowalski Ferragut

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

Kevin Farragher doesn’t have a book, hasn’t won a prize and barely has a leg to stand on. He wonders at the limits of life and language and thinks there might be overlap. The Tower of Babel is in his backyard, as is a garden gnome he calls Chomsky. His ears have heard the holy word that dwelt among the ancient trees, yet he remains steadfast in his appreciation of ambient noise.

Atira Zeoli has been writing poetry since she was three years old. Raised in the flat farmland of Poolesville, Maryland, and the mountain vistas of Northern Arizona, she was an active member of Sedona’s poetry community, earning a feature in Red Rock News (2005) and performing at Gumptionfest (2006, 2007) and the 7th Annual Slab City Slam as the sacrificial poet (2007). She won the 2007 Montgomery College Award for Creative Writing and the 2008 Danielle C. Ezrin Creative Writing Scholarship for her poem Tabula Rasa. She also interned at Potomac Review. From 2007-2008, she ran the Open Mind/Open Mic series in Germantown, MD.

She is the author of the self-published chapbook we all have belly buttons, and other notions of suffering and was a contributing writer for If I Knew, a multimedia health education initiative for young adults. Her poetry is forthcoming in the spring issue of PLENTY. Atira has led creative writing workshops in schools for many years and teaches writing classes at Riverworks Arts Center.

First Thursday, 7:00-8:30 pm, at Casey Community Center in Gaithersburg.

First Thursday, 7:00-8:30 pm, at Casey Community Center in Gaithersburg.

Lineup has changed for March. Updated above.

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

Poet and publisher, Le Hinton, is the author of seven collections including, most recently, Elegies for an Empire (2023) and Sing Silence (2018), both from Iris G. Press. His work has been widely published and can be found in The Best American Poetry 2014, The Baltimore Review, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Progressive magazine, Little Patuxent Review, Pleiades, The Summerset Review, and elsewhere. His poems have received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and have been nominated for Best of the Net. His poem, “Epidemic,” won The Baltimore Review’s 2013 Winter Writers Contest. In 2014 it was honored by The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, and in 2021 it was featured on the WPSU program, “Poetry Moment.” His poem, “Our Ballpark,” can be found outside Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, incorporated into Derek Parker’s sculpture Common Thread.

Lisa J. Munson is a prize-winning poet and co-editor of the poetry journal Fledgling Rag (pub. Iris G. Press). Currently her poem the next storm received an honorable mention for the 2024 PA Poetry Society’s (PPS) 75^th Anniversary Ars Poetica / Poetry Competition. Although her work recently appeared in Tony Israel’s photo exhibit “Living Roots, Artists for Climate Action” in Lancaster, PA, her poetry publication credits include The Sylvan, MiPOesias, The Delaware Poetry Review, Cape Gazette, Haggard and Halloo, and Amaranth. She has been an adjudicator for the World Artists Experiences’ Writing Project and Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition as well as a featured reader in the Lancaster, and mid-Atlantic areas. During her tenure in Maryland, she established and ran the reading series Poetry in the Park in Severna Park. Although her academic and former lives as musician, teacher, and paralegal have informed her work as a poet, her highly sensitive, intuitive, perceptive nature, and Buddhism continue to shape and influence the themes of connection, love, and profound loss found in her poetry.

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

stevenallenmay is/has been a poet, writer, performance artist, events coordinator, series curator and host, filmmaker, collage maker, and experimenter with technology & language. In 2024, Beothuk Books brought out his dystopian collection, written in the stubble of 2 torn out pages. He is also the author of Plastic Sunrise (2003) as well as a handful of chapbooks.

Sarah DeCorla-Souza is the author of the poetry collection Ordinary Time (Plan B Press, 2022). Her poetry has appeared in Mid Atlantic Review, Pensive, Innisfree, JMWW, and other journals. She lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband and four children, where she works as a graphic and UX designer. She is also the Art Director and an Associate Editor for the literary magazine Dappled Things.

Guest Host:

Kevin Farragher first found poetic inspiration in studying the works of the British Romantics, Victorians, and Moderns. Since then, his interests and reading have extended to other traditions and alternative voices. His career in Asset Management encouraged further exploration of poetry’s connections with pattern recognition such as it exists in disciplines like technology, mathematics, and finance. Kevin now lives in Montgomery County, Maryland with his true love, who is consanguine with Franz Kafka. He therefore rejoices daily for reasons that start with not waking up as a bed bug in someone else’s fable.