Day Eight is excited to have been asked by the Upper Georgia Avenue Main Street to act as a partnering producer in the upcoming, city-wide, Art All Night. This will be the sixth annual city-wide event and Day Eight’s first participating.
In partnership with the Upper Georgia Avenue Main Street, Day Eight is producing an open mic and four back to back poetry readings to occur 7-11pm outdoors in front of the Shepherd Park / Juanita Thornton DC Public Library located at 7420 Georgia Avenue NW. Come out and enjoy the fun with friends and neighbors!
7:15-8:00 PM – Featuring Susan Meehan, Pacyinz Lyfoung, and Lori Tsang
Susan Meehan is the author of the books Goddesses Incognito, and Talking to the Night, and co-editor with Robert Bettmann of Falling Leaves: an Interfaith anthology on the topic of consolation and loss.
Pacyinz Lyfoung is a French-born, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet. Her poems have been published in journals including the Asian American Renaissance Journal, Paj Ntaub Voice, the Journal of Southeast Asian Education and the Stonecoast Review.
Lori Tsang’s poems have been published in dISorient, Controlled Burn, Amerasia Journal, and others, and her essays and reviews have been published in the MultiCultural Review, The Washington Post Book World, Women’s Review of Books, and Amerasia Journal.
8:00-8:45 PM – Featuring Ori Z Soltes, Jane Schapiro, and Luther Jett
Ori Z. Soltes teaches at Georgetown University and is author or editor of 24 scholarly books and several hundred articles, exhibition catalogues, and essays. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and four collections, including Then and Now: Love Lost and Sometimes Found.
Jane Schapiro is the author of three volumes of poetry: Tapping This Stone (Washington Writers’ Publishing House Award, 1995), Let The Wind Push Us Across (Antrim House 2017), and Warbler (Kelsay Books, 2020). She is also the author of the nonfiction book Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks (University of Wisconsin, 2003).
W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. He is the author of three books of poetry: Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018) and Everyone Disappears (Kelsay Books, 2020).
8:45-9:15 PM – Poetry Open Mic with $100 cash prize awarded by judges from the Friends of the Shepherd Park Library: Beth Allaben, Naima Jefferson, and Mark Pattison.
9:15-10:00 PM – Featuring John Johnson, Jeffrey Banks, Monica Leak
John Johnson is the author of Love for Her (Day Eight, 2018.) A native Washingtonian and father of two, Johnson graduated from the University of the District of Columbia, and as a poet, playwright, director, and actor is dedicated to capturing the narratives of African Americans in Washington DC.
Jeffrey Banks, poetically known as ‘Big Homey’, has been featured in national media such as Essence Magazine, the CBS Early Show and Black Enterprise Magazine. He is a minister and Master of Divinity graduate of Howard University.
Monica Leak is the editor and a contributing writer of Faith of our Founders: 100 Daily Devotionals to Inspire, Encourage and Propel the Finer Woman. She works as a speech-language pathologist in southern Maryland, and a seminary librarian in northern Virginia.
10:00-10:45 PM – Featuring Regie Cabico, REIL, and Malik Thompson
Regie Cabico won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam, and later took top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. He directs Capturing Fire Spoken Word Arts in Washington, D.C., a queer poetry press and international poetry festival.
REIL is a native Washingtonian, and at age 16 was part of the inaugural Maryland slam poetry team that competed in New York City at Brave New Voices. A performing poet and poet educator, she is founder of REIL4Rudd, through which she volunteers to sustain the memory of disappeared child Relisha Rudd.
Malik Thompson, a native Washingtonian, is co-chair of OutWrite, an organization that advocates for inclusive literary programming that reflects and uplifts trans/queer literary communities. When they aren’t reading, writing, or partaking in imaginative reverie, they facilitate workshops on communication skills and applied nonviolence.
For more information about all of the Art All Night events produced by Upper Georgia Avenue Main Street visit their website here.