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
Ashley Elizabeth (she/her) is a winner of the 2024 Garden Party Collective Chapbook Contest. She is a Pushcart-nominated writer and teacher whose work has appeared in SWWIM, Voicemail Poems, Rigorous, and Sage Cigarettes, among others. Ashley is the author of A Family Thing (Redacted Books/ELJ Editions, 2024) and chapbooks CHARM(ed) (Fifth Wheel Press, 2024) , black has every right to be angry (Alternating Current, 2023), and you were supposed to be a friend (Nightingale & Sparrow, 2020). She lives on the original land of the Piscataway (Baltimore, MD) with her partner and their cats.
W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Luther is author of five poetry chapbooks: “Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father”, (Finishing Line Press, 2015), “Our Situation”, (Prolific Press, 2018), “Everyone Disappears” (Finishing Line Press, 2020), “Little Wars” (Kelsay Books, 2021), and “Watchman, What of the Night?” (CW Books, 2022). His full-length collection, “Flying to America” was released by Broadstone Press. Luther is facilitator of a monthly virtual open mike sponsored by the Hyattstown Mill Arts Project in Maryland. He also coordinates two monthly on-line poetry critique workshops.
Join this special reading of five amazing Poets to kick-off National Pride Month!!
Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.
Kim Roberts is the author of six books of poems, most recently Corona/Crown, a cross-disciplinary collaboration with photographer Robert Revere (WordTech Editions, 2023). Roberts edited By Broad Potomac’s Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of our Nation’s Capital (University of Virginia Press, 2020), selected by the East Coast Centers for the Book to represent Washington, DC in the Route 1 Reads program. She is the author of the popular guidebook, A Literary Guide to Washington, DC: Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston (University of Virginia Press, 2018). Roberts was a 2023 Pride Writer-in-Residence at the Arts Club of Washington, and was awarded a 2023 Independent Humanities Practitioner Fellowship from Humanities DC. She co-curates DC Pride Poem-a-Day each June with filmmaker Jon Gann. http://www.kimroberts.org
Hailey Leithauser is the author of Swoop (Graywolf 2013), winner of the Poetry Foundation’s Emily Dickinson First Book Award and the Towson Prize for Literature, and Saint Worm (Able Muse Press 2019). Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including 32 Poems, Agni, The Gettysburg Review, The Yale Review and three editions of Best American Poetry. She lives in Silver Spring MD.
Adrian Gaston Garcia, aka AGG, is a queer Latine storyteller whose mission is to share narratives that build community. He hails from the Windy City and has been in the District for the past 12 years. Adrian fuels his creativity via the performing arts, specifically theater, improv, and spoken word poetry. His work is largely based on his experiences and the intersectionality of his identities. It is a shout out to all the queer brown boys who choose joy as their form of resistance. Adrian is the co-host and producer of Los Bookis Podcast, a student at the Studio Acting Conservatory, and a performer with the Washington Improv Theater.
Robert L. Giron’s latest collection of poetry is Songs for the Spirit / Canciones para el Espíritu. He has authored five other collections of poetry and has edited five anthologies. His poetry and fiction have appeared in national and international anthologies. Born in Nebraska, he describes himself as a transplanted Texan, with family roots that go back over four centuries. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his husband Ken. An American of diverse ethnicities and trilingual, he describes himself as “just a man of the world” who can easily fit in with various cultural groups.
Chris Thomas is a Queer Black Non-Binary poet, speaker, and advocate, weaves their dynamic artistic expression with a profound commitment to social change. Recognized as a pioneer of poetry by the National Underground Spoken Word Poetry Award (NUSPA) in 2015, they have mesmerized audiences at prestigious institutions like Angelina College, Georgetown University, Jefferson University, and Howard University to spaces like Studio 2001 Art Gallery, The Athenaeum, and the Torpedo Art Factory. Through their acclaimed workshop, “Writing to Wellness,” C. empowers individuals to use poetry as a tool for healing while navigating childhood trauma.
W. Luther Jett’s new poetry collection begins with the question, “Who made this house?”, reminding current residents “You did not get here on your own, / and when you sleep and dream, / you do not dream alone.” He closes observing, “There it lingers, unfinished – / the story we labored to sing,” but that’s as it should be for “we do not want this hymn to end. // Glory to the muck.” Throughout the poems in between, he sings his hymn, and prayer, to the muck and unfinished business that is America, the place and the dream, and to all who have had a hand in the making of it. And if those dreams often are foreboding (“Ground Zero”), that is an accurate mirror of the myth of America, and of our current fractured state. (He even accomplishes that rare feat, a truly original poem memorializing the victims of 9/11.) He imagines future archaeologists trying to recover our music, of libraries devoured by invading foxes and memories lost “until but a word remains — / then not even that, only the language of stones.” But he’s not ready to give up just yet (“Can U hear me / Ameri-ka in the rishrush / roar of the big trucks?”), and he offers this lesson from his own “Heritage” of ancestors “making war upon each other”: “At the last, / it’s neither the battle nor the war / but the peace which comes after \ that makes this world spin on and on.”
(Larry Moore, Broadstone Books)
W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. His poetry performance piece, Flying to America, debuted at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington D.C. Luther’s poem “Monuments” was among the winning poems in the 2021 “Moving Words” competition, sponsored by the city of Arlington. His poem “Zeta” was a co-winner in the 2022 American Writers Review competition, sponsored by San Fedale Press. Luther’s poem “How Many Fingers”, published in Bourgeon, was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.
Luther has been a featured reader at many D.C. area venues. He is author of five poetry chapbooks: “Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father”, (Finishing Line Press, 2015), “Our Situation”, (Prolific Press, 2018), “Everyone Disappears” (Finishing Line Press, 2020), “Little Wars” (Kelsay Books, 2021), and “Watchman, What of the Night?” (CW Books, 2022). His full-length collection, “Flying to America” has just been released by Broadstone Press. Luther is facilitator of a monthly virtual open mike sponsored by the Hyattstown Mill Arts Project in Maryland. He also coordinates two monthly on-line poetry critique workshops.
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
Laura Costas Laura Costas is an artist, writer, musician and DC native. Ariadne Awakens (Paycock Press) is her third book of short works.
Sage Yamashita Sage Yamashita graduated with a BA from Albright college that has nothing to do with poetry and works a day job that also has nothing to do with poetry so of course he spends most of his free time reading and writing poetry. He has been published in wingless dreamer Soulful Verses collection as well as The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.
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)..
Let’s not stick to our poem plan of reading only originals in the Open next week, unless you’d like to. I welcome us to focus selections and energies on remembering and celebrating our much-loved, much-missed Poet friend, Reuben Jackson, whose words live on.
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
Marlena Chertock is a lesbian, Jewish, disabled poet with two books of poetry, Crumb-sized: Poems (Unnamed Press) and On that one-way trip to Mars (Bottlecap Press). She uses her skeletal dysplasia as a bridge to scientific poetry. Her poetry and prose has appeared in AWP’s The Writer’s Notebook, Breath & Shadow, The Deaf Poets Society, Lambda Literary Review, Little Patuxent Review, Paper Darts, Paranoid Tree, Washington Independent Review of Books, WMN Zine, Wordgathering, and more. Find her at marlenachertock.com and @mchertock.
Philip Wexler has had over 210 of his poems published in literary magazines. His full-length poetry collections include The Sad Parade (prose poems), and The Burning Moustache, both published by Adelaide Books, The Lesser Light (Finishing Line Press), With Something Like Hope (Silver Bow Publishing) and I Would be the Purple (Kelsay Books). He also hosts Words out Loud, a hybrid in-person/remote monthly spoken word series in the Washington, DC area.
I missed paying the fee for the website domain long enough that there was a late fee, which was high enough for me to drag my heels on paying, until now. Our dear founder, Lucinda Marshall, did caution that the domain name would be picked up quick by someone else were it to lapse. She was correct.
Our January and February readings featured incredible poets with thoughtful and entertaining work! Courtney LeBlanc, Nathan Leslie, Barbara DeCesare, and Donald Illich all read beautifully! The readings were moderately attended. There was some contradiction in posted dates with the February reading, which will inspire us to have Barbara and Don back to read sooner rather than later, because I bet some fans missed them for the confusion!
We’ll start posting Facebook invites and this site will enjoy timely updates. Plenty of places to check in to not miss any of the powerful poetry hosted by DiVerse! And with that too, we’ll not wait for attendees, but start punctually, 7 o’clock, to hopefully save more time at the end for mingling with the authors and buying autographed collections without rushing the Open Mic.
I like being able to look back at the history of readers and events. In that spirit, I will repost our November-February readers.
Feel free to share this site and post our future readings to all of your socials. We have some great ones coming up! Stay tuned…
-Kristin
November ’23
Jenn Koiter is the 2021 winner of the DC Poet Project. She holds degrees from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and Antiock University, and was the recipient of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. Originally from Colorado Springs, Jenn lived in Los Angeles, New Delhi, Wyoming, Chicago, and Austin, prior to Washington, D.C.
Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, and his newest, The Bottle Episode, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue. He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.
December ’23
Jacki Lewis (now DuPuy) is from Rockville, MD. She is the six of eight children. Her parents’ method of child rearing, a mixture of love, strictness, and compassion, heavily influenced her life. She always felt she had a creative side, but restricted it to hobbies. After a couple years of college, she eventually landed a job in HR at the International Monetary Fund. She slowly grew more confident in her creativity and got involved in various outlets: writing classes and clubs, open mic poetry, and urban line dancing, where she started an e-newsletter. She also had a short story published in Scribble magazine.
After a layoff, she completed her B.A., focused on her son, worked full and part-time jobs, got into belly dancing and got married. A health scare in 2021 inspired her to start an amateur artist showcase, where regular people can showcase their creative side. Through her part-time job with Casey, she heard about DiVerse, started writing again and became a regular participant.
Richard Peabody, born in Washington, DC., raised in Bethesda, MD., and now living in Arlington, VA., is a poet, writer, editor, teacher, publisher. The author of a novella and three short story collections, he taught graduate fiction writing at Johns Hopkins University for 15 years. His Gargoyle Magazine (founded 1976) released issue 76 in August 2022. The magazine has since moved online. His most recent poetry volume, Guinness on the Quay, was published in Ireland (Salmon Poetry, 2019). The Richard Peabody Reader, a career-encompassing collection, was released in 2015 by Alan Squire Publishing.
January ’24
Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections Her Whole Bright Life; Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart; and Beautiful & Full of Monsters.
She is the Arlington County Poet Laureate, a Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat,
an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com.
Nathan Leslie won the 2019 Washington Writers’ Publishing House prize for fiction for his collection of short stories, Hurry Up and Relax. He is also the series editor for Best Small Fictions. Invisible Hand (2022) and A Fly in the Ointment (2023) are his latest collections. Nathan’s previous books of fiction include Three Men, Root and Shoot, Sibs, and The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice. He is also the author of a collection of poems, Night Sweat. Nathan is currently the founder and organizer of the Reston Reading Series in Reston, Virginia, and the publisher and editor of the online journal Maryland Literary Review. Previously he was series editor for Best of the Web and fiction editor for Pedestal Magazine. His fiction has been published in hundreds of literary magazines such as Shenandoah, North American Review, Boulevard, Hotel Amerika, and Cimarron Review. Nathan’s nonfiction has been published in The Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and Orlando Sentinel. Nathan lives in Northern Virginia.
February ‘ 24
Poetry and fiction by Barbara DeCesare have appeared in Grain, Poetry, Alaska Quarterly, and many other journals. Her work has been adapted for song and stage. She is a graduate of the Goddard MFA program, and the author of three poetry collections: Jigsweyesore (Anti-Man), Adrift (Seventh Wave), and Silent Type (Paper Kite Press)
Barbara lives in York, PA.
Donald Illich‘s work appears in such journals as the Iowa Review, LIT, Nimrod, Passages North, Rattle, Fourteen Hills, The Louisville Review, Cimmaron Review, Map Literary, Spork, Cream City Review, and Sixth Finch. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and received a scholarship from the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference. He won Honorable Mention in the Washington Prize book contest and was a “Discovery” / Boston Review 2008 Poetry Contest semi-finalist. Gold Wake Press named his full-length manuscript a finalist during their 2015 open reading. His work has been anthologized in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry and City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry. He published a chapbook, Rocket Children, in 2012, and published another chapbook in 2016, The Art of Dissolving (Finishing Line Press). His full-length manuscript, Chance Bodies, was published in 2018 by The Word Works. His newest book, Rescue is Elsewhere, was released in 2023.
Casey Community Center, 1 mile north of Shady Grove Metro on 355
810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877
Pamela Murray Winters is a poet, essayist, and Facebook oversharer from Bowie, Maryland. Her first book, The Unbeckonable Bird (FutureCycle Press, 2018), will be followed by another full-length book, whose manuscript is being considered by many fine publishers. In the meantime, she’s working on several chapbooks and, apparently, unexpected essays. Her work has been published in Gargoyle,Gettysburg Review, Fledgling Rag, ASP Bulletin, Possum, and other journals and anthologies. She’s read in lots of wonderful venues, has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has received two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards.
Rocky Jones has been producing poetry readings in Maryland since 2005. His publishing credits include Texture Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, and the online poetry journal Truck. His poetry performances have been included at Wheaton Arts Parade; Spiral Staircase in Annapolis; and Artsfest at Annmarie Sculpture Garden in Solomons. His 16-page poetry book, My Demo, was self-published in 2017.
Casey Community Center, 1 mile north of Shady Grove Metro on 355
810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877
Michael Gushue is the co-founder of the heteronymic nanopress Poetry Mutual. His books are Pachinko Mouth (Plan B Press), Conrad (Silver Spoon Press), Gather Down Women (Pudding House Press), and, in collaboration with CL Bledsoe, I Never Promised You A Sea Monkey (Pretzelcoatl Press). He lives in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C. His most recent collection, Sympathy for the Monster, offers a spellbinding tapestry of words, infusing the cinematic realm with an ethereal quality that captivates.
Sandra Beasley is the author of Made to Explode, winner of the Housatonic Book Award; Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize; and Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a disability memoir. She also edited Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. She lives in Washington, D.C.
DiVerse Gaithersburg 