O, Miami returns to deliver a poem to every single person in Miami-Dade county during the month of April.

For info, click here.
For the live schedule, click here.
For a list of participating poets, click here.
For a list of projects, click here.

O, Miami is made possible with support from the Knight Foundation, Miami-Dade County, The Betsy-South Beach, the City of Miami Beach, WLRN-Miami Herald News, WLRN, Cars2Go, Books & Books, Sweat Records, Rhythm Foundation, Edible South Florida, Bas Fisher Invitational, and many others.

The Writer's Room at The Betsy Hotel and University of Wynwood Present poet John Murillo.

B Bar at The Betsy Hotel
Doors at 8pm, Reading at 8:30pm
Tuesday, January 8, 2012

John Murillo's first poetry collection, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher 2010), was a finalist for both the 2011 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and was named by The Huffington Post as one of "Ten Recent Books of Poetry You Should Read Right Now." A graduate of New York University's MFA program in creative writing, his other honors include a Pushcart Prize, two Larry Neal Writers Awards, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Cave Canem Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the New York Times, and the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. His work has appeared in such publications as Callaloo, Court Green, Ninth Letter, and Ploughshares, and is forthcoming in Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of African-American Poetry. His choreo-play, Trigger, was commissioned by Edgeworks Dance Theater and premiered in spring 2011.  

A talk with Magnum photographers Gilles Peress, Bruce Gilden, and Paolo Pellegrin, moderated by P. Scott Cunningham. For examples of the work, visit Postcards from America.

The Writer's Room at The Betsy and the Creative Writing Department at FIU is proud to present: A Reading by Jan Wagner, hosted by Campbell McGrath.

8pm in B Bar (downstairs from the lobby bar) at The Betsy Hotel. Admission is free. Beer will be on sale for $5. RSVP to artsandculture {at} thebetsyhotel \dot\ com.

"Jan Wagner is one of the most important German-language poets of the younger generation." - Goethe Institut

Jan Wagner was born in October 1971 in Hamburg and grew up in Schleswig-Holstein. He studied English and American Studies, first at the University of Hamburg, then a year at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, before moving to Berlin in 1995, where he has lived ever since. Wagner has published three collections of poems and is a well-known editor, reviewer and translator, particularly of American poets such as Charles Simic, James Tate, Matthew Sweeney, Jo Shapcott, Simon Armitage, Robin Robertson and many others.

University of Wynwood is a co-sponsor of this event.

Six poets associated with h_ngm_n books — Caroline Cabrera, Steven Karl, Alexis Orgera, Curtis Perdue, and Nick Sturm — will read at Lester's Bar in Wynwood as part of a two-day Florida mini-tour.

Steven Karl has had chapbooks published by Peptic Robot Press, Flying Guillotine Press, H_NGM_N, and Lame House. He is an editor for Sink Review and Coldfront Magazine and the guest editor for Immaculate Disciples Press. His first book is forthcoming from Coconut Books in Fall of 2013. He lives in Miami.

Nick Sturm is the author of the chapbooks WHAT A TREMENDOUS TIME WE’RE HAVING! (iO Books), A Basic Guide (Bateau), Beautiful Out (H_NGM_N) and, with Wendy Xu, I Was Not Even Born (Coconut). His poems have appeared in Aesthetix, Forklift, Ohio, Jellyfish, jubilat, Sixth Finch, TYPO, and elsewhere. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

Curtis Perdue is the author of the chapbook You Will Island (H_NGM_N 2012). His poems have appeared in Bateau, iO, Jellyfish Magazine, LEVELER, Vinyl Poetry, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. He lives in South Florida and edits the online journal inter|rupture.

Caroline Cabrera is the author of Flood Bloom (forthcoming, H_NGMAN) and the chapbook, Dear Sensitive Beard (forthcoming, Dancing Girl Press). Her poems have appeared or will appear in Bateau, Conduit, The Denver Quarterly Interrupture, and Jellyfish, among others. She is chapbook editor at Slope Editions. She lives in Fort Lauderdale.

Alexis Orgera is the author of How Like Foreign Objects (H_NGM_N) and Dust Jacket (forthcoming, Coconut), two chapbooks, Illuminatrix (Forklift) and Dear Friends, The Birds Were Wonderful (Blue Hour), and a B-Sides called Man O’ War, now available from H_NGM_N as an e-book. Her poems, essays, and interviews can be found in the air and on paper if you look for them. She lives in Sarasota.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Lillian-Yvonne Bertram.

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram has been a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference work-study scholar, a writer-in-residence at the Montana Artists’ Refuge, and is a Cave Canem alumna. Her poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Callaloo, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, Narrative Magazine, Subtropics, and other journals. Bertram is a graduate of the writing programs at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a 2009-2011 Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow at Williams College where she taught creative writing and literature. Her first book, But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise, won the Red Hen Press 2010 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, judged by Claudia Rankine.

This event is free. Drinks will be available for purchase.

At O, Miami 2011, we brought down poets Tracy K. Smith and Gabrielle Calvocoressi to Miami to "lay down some tracks" with Discosoma Records. Over a year later, the fruits of that afternoon are finally off the vine.

O, Miami and Discosoma Records present an original 7" record featuring 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy K. Smith and L.A. Times Book Prize-finalist Gabrielle Calvocoressi. Each poet recorded three poems at Honor Roll Studios in Little Haiti on April 1, 2011, which were then mastered by Danny Meltzer. A limited edition of 200 records was pressed, and then each cover was hand-painted as an original multiple by Miami artist Nicolas Lobo.

On Thursday, September 20th, at 8:30 p.m., we'll unveil the record at Lester's in Wynwood. Copies will be available for sale for $25.

Guest DJs
Sgt. Pepperspray (Danny from the Jacuzzi Boys)
Kevin Arrow
Tha Chicken Flava
Jared McKay (Discosoma Records)

This project was made possible through support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Mark Bibbins.

Mark Bibbins is the author of two books of poems, The Dance of No Hard Feelings and the Lambda Award-winning Sky Lounge. His third, They Don't Kill You Because They're Hungry, They Kill You Because They're Full, will be published by Copper Canyon Press. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Fence, A Public Space, and an e-chapbook called The Anxiety of Coincidence. He teaches at The New School, where he co-founded LIT magazine, and at Columbia University. He edits the poetry section of The Awl.

In conjunction with The Betsy Hotel, University of Wynwood presents "Memoir and Self-Annihilation: A Breakfast Salon" with author Sarah Heston.

The salon and breakfast will be held at The Betsy Hotel's restaurant BLT on Tuesday, September 4th at 9:30 a.m. Attendance is free. Sign-up is limited to eight persons and is only available via the University of Wynwood newsletter.

Heston: "In this talk I will discuss how the history and preoccupations of western memoir has been geared toward absence rather than self. I argue that scholars of memoir need to stop focusing on an auto-diegetic self in order to truly understand the defiant goals and duplicitous history of the genre. From Late Antiquity to the present, memoir has been used to conjure an author's absence, not articulate a self in conversion or transition."

Sarah Heston received her MFA in poetry from UC Irvine and is currently a PhD candidate in creative nonfiction at the University of Missouri. She is completing two dissertations, one a memoir titled Daughter-Son and another a scholarly work on memoir called Memoir Outside of Self. Her awards include the 2009 Eda Kriseova fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Prague Summer Program, the 2010 MU Creative Writing Program Award in Nonfiction, and the 2012 Elizabeth T. Barnes Memorial Fellowship. Excerpts from her memoir appear in American Literary Review and Hotel Amerika.

Poets Glenda Galan & P. Scott Cunningham read as part of the Miami Performance International Festival 2012. Click here for a link to the day's schedule.

A reading to celebrate the release of Jai-Alai Magazine #9. List of readers forthcoming.

Issue #9 features work by Peg Boyers, Jenny Brillhart, Felicia Chizuko Carlisle, Jessica Chrastil, Anna Deeny, Matthew Dickman, Jim Drain, Victoria Newton Ford, Matthew Gajewski, Forrest Gander, J. David Gonzalez, Ben Greenman, Tom Healy, Siri Kusch, Adrian Matejka, Jill McDonough, Gilbert Wesley Purdy, Roger Reeves, Sandra Santana, Victor Santiago, Kyle Trowbridge, Odalis Valdieso, Sam Winston, and Raúl Zurita.

The University of Wynwood welcomes Omni ZonaFranca, a group of cuban poets from the projects of Habana.

On Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 7 p.m. at Sweat Records, OMNI will present their new performance ¡¡¡MÁKINA TOTAL CITY!!! -- a dynamic presentation of poetry, music, and dance. Admission is free. After the performance there will be a short Q & A.

Omni-ZonaFranca is a multi-disciplinary collective from Cuba. OMNI’s work is a unique blend of performance, music, poetry, spoken word, rap, visual art, graffiti, video, and public art. Working together since 1997 they have produced several music/poetry CDs and videos, including the groundbreaking CD Alamar Express. They produce an annual music, art, theater and poetry festival Poesía Sin Fin in Cuba. They have taken part in the Havana Biennial, and international exhibitions and festivals throughout Cuba and Europe. OMNI has been the subject of three documentaries. This is their first tour of the United States.

The Betsy Hotel presents a reading of three generations of poets: Daniel Halpern, Campbell McGrath, and I. Daniel was Campbell's teacher and Campbell was my teacher and I wish Daniel was my teacher too.

The founder and long-time editor of the influential literary magazine Antaeus, Daniel Halpern is the author of nine books of poetry and is the president and publisher of Ecco Press. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Campbell McGrath is the author of ten full-length collections of poetry and a winner of the Kinglsey Tufts Poetry Award, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and a 2011 United States Artists Fellowship.

I run this website.

Join University of Wynwood and poets Ariana Reines and Jay Snodgrass as we participate in an open mic at the Miami VA Medical Center.

Hosted by poet and military veteran Anthony Torres, the open mic will bring together members of different literary communities in Miami.

The event is open and free to the public. A sign-up sheet will determine the order. Participants must limit their readings to three minutes or less.

Reines and Snodgrass will be available to answer questions about literary craft.

Free parking is located in front of the building.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Ariana Reines.

Reines will read from her work as well as present the work of another poet who is actively influencing her writing. Admission is free. Drinks will be for sale. After the reading, Reines will sign books.

Ariana Reines is the author of three poetry collections, The Cow (Alberta Prize, FenceBooks: 2006), Coeur de Lion (Mal-O-Mar: 2007; FenceBooks: 2011), MERCURY (FenceBooks: 2011), and the play TELEPHONE, winner of two Obie awards. In 2009 she became the youngest ever Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in Poetry at University of California Berkeley.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Malachi Black.

Black will read from his own work as well as present the work of John Keats, particularly Keats's famous series of six odes (Indolence, Urns, Melancholy, etc.) and how they have served as guiding influences. Admission is free. Drinks will be for sale. After the reading, Black will sign books.

Malachi Black is the author of the chapbooks Echolocation (Float Press limited edition, 2010) and Quarantine (Argos Books, 2012). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Poetry, Boston Review, The Iowa Review, and Blackbird, among others, as well as in several recent and forthcoming anthologies. The recipient of a 2009 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, he has also received recent fellowships and awards from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The MacDowell Colony, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers, where he earned his MFA. A current Vice Presidential Fellow at the University of Utah, he was the subject of an Emerging Poet profile by Mark Jarman in the Fall 2011 issue of the Academy of American Poets’ American Poet magazine.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Reginald Dwayne Betts.

Betts will read from his work as well as present the work of another poet who is actively influencing his writing. Admission is free. Drinks will be for sale. After the reading, Betts will sign books.

Reginald Dwayne Betts is a husband and father of a young son. As a poet, essayist and national spokesperson for the Campaign for Youth Justice, Betts writes and lectures about the impact of mass incarceration on American society. In 2011 Betts was awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship to Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies. The author of the memoir, A Question of Freedom (Avery/Penguin 2009) and the collection of poetry, Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Alice James Books, 2010), Betts’ work possesses a careful, complicated and often difficult-to-confront intimacy that challenges conventional ideas about crime, masculinity and redemption. In 2010 he was awarded an NAACP Image Award for A Question of Freedom, and a Soros Justice Fellowship to complete The Circumference of a Prison, a work of nonfiction exploring the criminal justice system's role in the every day lives of Americans who have not committed crimes.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Melissa Broder.

Broder will read from her work as well as present the work of another poet who is actively influencing her writing. Admission is free. Drinks will be for sale. After the reading, Broder will sign books.

Melissa Broder is the author of two collections of poems, When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother, and most recently MEAT HEART. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Guernica, Redivider, The Missouri Review online, Court Green, Drunken Boat, Barrelhouse, The Awl, et al. She edits La Petite Zine. By day she is a publicity manager at Penguin.

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In honor of National Poetry Month, O, Miami presents former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

Billy Collins has published eight collections of poetry and was the United States Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 and the New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He was named a "Literary Lion" by the New York Public Library and has been awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In October 2004, Collins was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry.

Billy will be preceded by poet Melissa Broder.

Melissa Broder is the author of two collections of poems, When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother, and most recently MEAT HEART. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Guernica, Redivider, The Missouri Review online, Court Green, Drunken Boat, Barrelhouse, The Awl, et al. She edits La Petite Zine. By day she is a publicity manager at Penguin.

After the reading, Collins and Broder will sign books, courtesy of Books & Books.

This event is made by possible through support from the Knight Foundation, Miami-Dade County, and The Betsy South Beach.

An evening of textual and aural excitement at Lester's Bar, with:

P. Scott Cunningham
Matthew Abess
David Gonzalez

w/ varia presented for neural pleasure

poetry, fiction, analog sounds

readings and DJing

etc.

Facebook Invite

Reality Conference is a conference about reality television organized by Ruba Katrib and P. Scott Cunningham and presented by the University of Wynwood at Lester's Bar Miami on Saturday, December 10, 2011. To submit an abstract or register for the conference, please visit the event page.

University of Wynwood welcomes the literary world to Miami with a karaoke party at Lester's Bar. Special guest performers will include local and visiting authors from Miami Book Fair International.

A reading by fiction writers Matthew Gajewski and David Gonzalez and poet Matthew Abess as part of LegalArt Miami's I Heart Art.

The readings will take place in LegalArt's stairwell according to the following schedule:

7:30 p.m. Matt Gajewski
8:30 p.m. David Gonzalez
9:30 p.m. Matthew Abess

Visit the event webpage at LegalArt for more information.

University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Roger Reeves to Lester's Bar.

Roger Reeves' poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, and Indiana Review, among others. Kim Addonizio selected “Kletic of Walt Whitman” for the Best New Poets 2009 anthology. He was awarded a Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation in 2008, two Bread Loaf Scholarships, an Alberta H. Walker Scholarship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and two Cave Canem Fellowships. Recently, he earned his MFA from the James A. Michener Center for Creative Writing at the University of Texas. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in the English Department at the University of Texas and an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Reeves will read his work and participate in a brief Q&A. A reception will follow.

University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes Traci Brimhall.

Traci Brimhall is the author of Our Lady of the Ruins (forthcoming from W.W. Norton), selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She was the 2008-09 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and currently teaches at Western Michigan University, where she is a doctoral associate and King/Chávez/Parks Fellow.

Jai-Alai Magazine presents: Literary Death Match Miami, Part Deux. To celebrate the release of Jai-Alai Magazine #10, University of Wynwood has invited Literary Death Match back to Miami, and this time they're bringing their founder and original host Todd Zuniga. The format remains the same: four readers, three judges, one winner and an infinite number of laughs. Each reader has seven minutes to impress the judges and the crowd, with the two winners then moving on to compete in the Literary Death Match finale: an absurd and comical test of will to determine who takes home the Literary Death Match Miami crown.

Judges: Director Billy Corben, Author Diana Abu-Jabar, and Comedian Jessica Gross

Readers: Matt Gajewski, Brett Rosenblatt, James Sprang, and Annie Vasquez

www.literarydeathmatch.com

Lester's Bar and University of Wynwood present

Feld is the Lost | Field Now Farm :: a poetry reading by Matthew Abess and P. Scott Cunningham

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
8 p.m.
Lester’s Bar
2519 NW 2nd Ave.
Miami, FL 33127

Tags: basket on head, bay of nixon, parasol, shoes, sculpture of lipton, dealey shoes, pictures of turfan, agencies, units, fishing pole and can, scharlee on first, oswald on second, ruby on deck with pastures in weald, hides at chertsey, hides at thorpe, in nomine domini, oh that’s our shortstop

Reading #1: catalogue / movements (ma)
Reading #2: false taxonomies (psc)
Reading #3: from No. 90 Part IV (ma)
Reading #4: love poems (psc)

Beer & wine will be available for sale or purchase. Chairs will be provided for those who are able to sit.

Click here to RSVP via Eventbrite

A month-long interdisciplinary poetry festival. The goal of O MIAMI is for every single resident of Miami-Dade County to encounter a poem during April 2011. Visit omiami.org for more information.

This craft talk, hosted by the end/spring break and led by poet Peter Borrebach, will seek to create a useful and thoroughly modern visuo-geometric analogy for the lyrical process, to not only look into what is going on when writers and readers have lyrical experiences, but also to give ourselves, as lyrical poem-creators, new insight into our own methodologies. The talk will be highly interactive, involving several writing exercises, lively discussions, recursive equations, and fractal dimensions (please bring a pen and paper). A reading packet is available for download here. Attendees are kindly asked to read these poems in advance of the talk.

Presented by The Free School for Writing, a series of free craft talks and writing workshops at the end/spring break. Writers are invited to give talks and workshops in exchange for a forum in which to investigate any writing or literary idea, topic, or inquiry they want with a group of engaged listeners and participants. The series focuses on fiction and poetry, but can also address other forms of writing and book arts.

Hosted by SPRING BREAK at Bas Fisher Invitational (on the second floor of the Buena Vista Building - enter the atrium, take the stairs to the 2nd floor).

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series, sponsored by Knight Foundation, continues this Spring with its first-ever husband-and-wife visitors: Stacey Lynn Brown and Adrian Matejka.

Beginning at 7 p.m., Brown and Matejka will read from their work, participate in a brief Q&A, and sign books at Books & Books Coral Gables.

Stacey Lynn Brown was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and studied at Emory University, Oxford University, and The University of Oregon, where she received her MFA in Poetry. A poet, playwright, and essayist, her work appears widely. Her book-length poem in sections, Cradle Song, was published by C&R Press in January, 2009. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, where she lives with her husband, poet Adrian Matejka, and their daughter.

Listen to Stacey evoke the South

Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany but grew up in California and Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His first collection of poems, The Devil’s Garden, won the 2002 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. His second collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and was published by Penguin Books in 2009. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2010. He teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where he serves as Poetry Editor for Sou’wester and co-directs the River Styx at Duff’s Reading Series.

Listen to Adrian explain the importance of Al Green

Come celebrate the Southeastern United States release of Ballerz 2K10: Poems About the NBA with original basketball poems read live by Erik Bloch, P. Scott Cunningham, Mike Stutzman and Dave Landsberger*.

Featuring special guest Adrian Matejka, National Poetry Series Winner and University of Wynwood Professor of Blake Griffin and Al Green Studies.

This event is part of The End/Spring Break’s March takeover of Bas Fisher Invitational and precedes actual entertainment by

David Scott Kirby
Travis Johnson
Dino Felipe
Echolalia
Eyelash

*Stutzman and Landsberger in attendance in name only

Do you like to write poetry? Do you live in Miami-Dade County?

From now until February 28, 2011, O, Miami is asking all Miami-Dade County residents who write poetry to participate in the first-ever Miami Poet Census. We want everybody who identifies as a poet to sign up and be counted. The publication of individual poems or collections of poems is NOT a requirement to be included. All languages, styles, and levels of experience are welcome.

The goal of the census is for the first time in history to accurately represent the community of poets in Miami and to create a “Poetic Map of Miami” that will demonstrate our impact on cultural life. In addition, your contribution makes you eligible for publication in “The Poetic Guide to Miami,” a book O, Miami is commissioning during April 2011.

To participate, click here and fill out the simple form.

Come hear new poems by Emma Trelles and UW director P. Scott Cunningham at the brand-new Books & Books Museum Cafe at the Museum of Art Ft. Lauderdale.

Emma Trelles is the author of Tropicalia, published this month by the University of Notre Dame Press and winner of the 2010 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She's also a Puschcart Prize nominee and a regular contributor to The Best American Poetry Blog.

P. Scott Cunningham is the founder of University of Wynwood and O, Miami and the executive editor of Jai-Alai Magazine. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the Harvard Review, Court Green, McSweeney's, Redivider, Roanoke Review, and elsewhere. A new chapbook of his comes out in March from Floating Wolf Quarterly.

University of Wynwood presents… Miami Squares: A Collective Reading of Local Poetry.

Featuring: David Svenson, Alexis Sellas, Parker Phillips, Patrick Norris, James May, Amanda Hosey, and P. Scott Cunningham

Sprung from the fertile mind of Peter Borrebach (UW Project Manager and Dean of the Dept. of Quantum Voltae), Miami Squares is a poetry reading crossed with a Choose Your Own Advenutre novel, in which a cast of local poets relies heavily on audience participation for the nature and direction of their reading.

Read the review in the Miami New Times.

Join our friends at LegalArt as they present a reading of poetry and prose by their current writer-in-residence, Sandra Beasley. Before and after the reading, LegalArt will also host an open house for their resident artists.

Sandra Beasley is a writer living in Washington, DC, where her essays have been featured in the Washington Post Magazine. She is the author of three books, including I Was the Jukebox (winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poetry Prize) and the memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, forthcoming from Crown in July. Please RSVP for the reading at info {at} legalartmiami [dot] org.

University of Wynwood presents… Miami Squares: A Collective Reading of Local Poetry.

Sprung from the fertile mind of Peter Borrebach (UW Project Manager and Dean of the Dept. of Quantum Voltae), Miami Squares is a poetry reading crossed with a Choose Your Own Advenutre novel, in which a cast of local poets relies heavily on audience participation for the nature and direction of their reading. Our first one was a huge success; read the review in the Miami New Times.

Members of the Miami Poetry Collective, including Peter Borrebach, Parker Phillips, David Svenson, and Patsy Warman, will be reading poems that speak from the spaces between the arts, utilizing ekphrasis (poetry written after specific works of visual art) as a tool to recognize that the lyric process is one that both precludes and transcends the experience of art. This free event will be held in the brand-new Books & Books bookstore/cafe in the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale. Call the museum at (954) 525-5500 for more information or visit the museum's listing of the entire weekend's lineup of special events.

Join UW Director P. Scott Cunningham, UW Project Manager Peter Borrebach, and Kaleidoscope Collective's Inah Mercedes as they introduce University of Wynwood Press's newest project, Jai-Alai Magazine at the MIA Art Fair. Beginning at 12:30pm in Hall D of the Miami Beach Convention Center, the three will discuss the founding principles of Jai-Alai, its editorial and submission process, its collaborations with local artists, and the unique mission of this limited edition print literary journal.

During Art Basel Miami Beach. Details TBA.

More info on Jai-Alai Magazine at their website.

Tigertail presents A South Florida Poetry Annual VIII: Selected Collective, Poetry, Prose and Projects by the Miami Poetry Collective. Members of the MPC will present a reading that responds and plays off the projects in the book. Click here for more event information.

Come hear Patti Smith read from her memoir, Just Kids, her National Book Award-nominated account of her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe and her early development as a writer, musician, and artist. The reading is part of Miami Book Fair International's Evenings With... series and produced by our friends at Florida Center for the Literary Arts.

Before the reading, FCLA has graciously allowed University of Wynwood to formally announce the creation of O, Miami.

Way back in 2009, a group of Miami artists and writers got together at Sweat Records in Little Haiti to share work. What resulted-a series of collaborative broadsides diverse as the city itself-remained an underground body of work...until now. This Sunday, check out the complete series of broadsides during a reception for the collaborators: Andrew Binder, Crissa-Jean Chappel, Rosemarie Chiarlone, Susan Weiner, Ashley Ford, Brian Lehnen, Park McArthur, Peter Borrebach, David Gonzalez, Jessica Machado, Alberto Meza, Beatriz Monteavaro, Yaddyra Peralta, Lea Nickless, Cyn. Zarco, Celeste Pierson, Brian Reedy, P. Scott Cunningham, Lydia Rubio, Michael Hettich, Claudia Scalise, Kari Snyder, Tom Virgin, John Dufresne, and Gabriel Spera.

The eighth edition of Tigertail, A South Florida Poetry Annual has been abducted by our friends the Miami Poetry Collective, who have co-created an archive-slash-art book (designed by Carol Todaro and Vortex Communications) that documents their brief history. The Selected Collective, as they're referring to it, contains poems from all six previous Cent Journals, as well as Poem Depot poems, Twitter poems, short essays, and the world's first Field Guide to Florida Poets.

This Sunday they're unveiling (and signing) the book at Books & Books Coral Gables, and of course, the reading will not follow usual poetic protocol but instead will feature the performative elements MPC audiences have become accustomed to: typewriters, audience suggestions, and the MC-skills of Mr. James May.

Presented by Tigertail Productions. Free admission.

The University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Series welcomes F. Daniel Rzicnek. Rzicznek will read from his work, participate in a Q&A, and sign books.

Hosted by Bas Fisher Invitational. Parking is available at municipal rates at curbside spaces. Enter the building, then go to the second floor. BFI is on the north side of the atrium. (If you haven't been there before, give yourself some time to find it.)

F. Daniel Rzicznek’s poetry collections include Divination Machine (Parlor Press, 2009), Neck of the World (Utah State University Press, 2007) and Cloud Tablets (Kent State University Press, 2006). He is also co-editor with Gary L. McDowell of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010). Rzicznek teaches at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

The fall semester at the University of Wynwood continues with visiting essayist John D’Agata. D’Agata will read from his new book About a Mountain (Norton, 2010), a lyric investigation into the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal program and the suicide of Levi Presley, a Las Vegas teenager who jumped from the top of the Stratsophere Hotel and Casino in 2002. The reading, part of Locust Projects Skill Share series of artist talks, will include an extended Q&A and a book signing provided by Books & Books.

The event is free. Parking is available on the street.

Funding for the University of Wynwood is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The fall semester at the University of Wynwood begins with visiting poets Honor Moore and Joanna Klink on Tuesday, September 14. Moore and Klink will read from their work beginning at 8 p.m., followed by a Q&A and book signing. The Lido Lounge will then expand into an open salon. Drinks will be available for purchase for those 21+.

The event is free. Valet parking will be subsidized by The Standard and University of Wynwood at the discounted rate of $3. Funding for the University of Wynwood Visiting Poets Series is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The book signing is generously provided by Books & Books, Miami's premier independent book seller.

HONOR MOORE is the author of three collections of poems, in addition to being an award-winning playwright, memoirist, editor, and critic. Her 2008 memoir, The Bishop’s Daughter, was named an Editor's Choice by the New York Times, a "Favorite Book of 2008" by the Los Angeles Times and was chosen by the National Book Critics Circle as part of their "Good Reads" recommended reading list. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moore has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission for the Arts, in addition to receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004 for non-fiction. She lives in New York and teaches in the graduate writing programs at the New School.

JOANNA KLINK is the author of three books of poetry: They Are Sleeping, Circadian, and Raptus, just out from Penguin. Her poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including Chicago Review and Boston Review. She received an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and now teaches on the poetry faculty at the University of Montana. Her work-in-progress is a lyric book on Paul Celan called Strangeness. The recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, she is currently on leave as the Briggs-Copeland Poet at Harvard.

The University of Wynwood is proud to participate in the Fall for the Arts Festival at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. We'll have a table set up in conjunction with the Miami Poetry Collective where we'll be giving away original poems to members of the Lady Python Nation and anyone else who signs up for our alumni newsletter. Stop by and say hi on your way to the Rebirth Brass Band and Ozomatli.

It's band night at New Work Miami 2010! Music by Beings and Jacuzzi Boys. Be sure to pick up a copy of "Lies and Poems"-a poetry journal curated by University of Wynwood and produced by artists Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza. Donation bar + light fare. $5 for MAM members. $15 for non-members.

Pick up a copy of "Lies and Poems"-a poetry journal curated by University of Wynwood and produced by artists Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza-at the second of several "After Hours" events for New Work Miami 2010. Performance by Ana Mendez, Aja Albertson and Richard Vergez. Gallery talks by Kevin Arrow and Manny Prieres. Content by Talking Head Transmitters. For the stomach, there's a donation bar + light fare. $5 for MAM members. $15 for non-members.

Pick up a copy of "Lies and Poems"-a poetry journal curated by University of Wynwood and produced by artists Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza-at the first of several "After Hours" events for New Work Miami 2010. Gean and Ernesto will be doing a gallery talk about their contribution to the exhibit; besides creating "Lies and Poems" and the exhibition guide, they also transformed the museum's educational room. Also on the bill are the always-excellent Talking Head Transmitters doing a live radio segment on "The Big Spill;" interactive events led by Felecia Chizuko Carlise and Michael Genovese; and a performance by Maria Jose Arjona. For the stomach, there's a donation bar + light fare. $5 for MAM members. $15 for non-members.

Join UofW for the official release of the second printing of Hialeah Haikus, a collection of the Japanese-style, 5-7-5 syllable structure poems, infused with an unmistakable Miami flavor.

A daring attendee will enjoy a reading of several select haikus by the authors themselves, intertwined with a Q&A session led by University of Wynwood that will have you saying, “****!” Or just “¡**!” in Español. The event is free. The book is $10. And proceeds from the book sales will benefit the non-for-profit sponsoring all this madness: Artes Miami/Editorial Ultramar.

Foryoucansee was founded by Alex Fumero, Lucas Leyva, and Marco Ramirez—three young artists with a passion for creating native work. This time they stand on the shoulders of giants, fellow authors: Eric Anderson, Ceci Fernandez, Danny Monsalve, Alex Nodarse, Elena Santayana, and local celebrity, Jose El Rey. Original photography in the book by Matthew Berkowitz.

A collective reading of local poetry, featuring a baker's half-dozen poets from the Miami Poetry Collective. Emceed by Miami's Premiere Poetic Maitre D', James May.

We have been taught since childhood not to judge books by their covers, but on this night, we will put that concept to the test, as audience members will decide the order in which the evening's poems will be read--based solely on their titles. To further spice things up, poets will not be reading their own works, instead lobbying along with the audience as to when each poem should be read, and by who.

Gregory Pardlo teaches at George Washington University. His debut collection, Totem, won the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. His poetry is formal, precise, and theatrical in its tendency to inhabit the voices of others. If his poetry were a band, it would be Pink Floyd, fronted by Andre 3000. A lifelong guitar player, Pardlo never loses the music in the words. An excerpt from "Soundtrack":

Suppose, for instance, our taste for / harmony is just a groping after patterns. Rapture of ten / million monkeys tattooing the keys of their / typewriters symphonically like the cast of Stomp. / Must I organize life according to an alphabet / of clicks and grunts? What use is an anniversary? / What makes the sentence a complete thought and why / would anyone want one?

Ed Skoog's poetry is formal, too, but if Pardlo's wearing a white tuxedo, Skoog's in a three-piecer with a tire iron hidden under the sportcoat. His debut collection, Mister Skylight, came out only last year from Copper Canyon Press, but it's almost impossible to find someone in the poetry world who doesn't know Ed personally or hasn't read (and loved) his starkly-rendered portraits of regular people caught up in this world's ongoing disaster. As he says in the poem "Recent Changes at Cantor's Deli":

I’m the dredge flopping for tar from the pits. / Click. I am a kind of David Bowie / in the Amoeba Records everything’s-a-dollar bin.

Pardlo and Skoog will read poems and then participate in a brief Q&A about their work.

Ed Skoog will lead a three-day intensive poetry workshop. Invitation only, via signing up for Lady Python Nation. Further description will come through University of Wynwood alumni email.

Presented in conjunction with The Betsy-South Beach, as part of their continuing commitment to American poetry. Read more about The Betsy's poetic lineage here.

Zachary Schomburg will present an invitation-only craft talk as part of the University of Wynwood's Visiting Poet Series. Schomburg is the author of two collections of poetry, The Man Suit (Black Ocean, 2007) and Scary, No Scary (Black Ocean, 2009), as well as serving as co-editor of Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books, both of which he co-founded. This event will only be offered to University of Wynwood Friends and is first-come, first-serve. To sign up, fill out the form under Invitations.

Zachary Schomburg will present a reading as part of the University of Wynwood's Visiting Poet Series. Schomburg is the author of two collections of poetry, The Man Suit (Black Ocean, 2007) and Scary, No Scary (Black Ocean, 2009), as well as serving as co-editor of Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books, both of which he co-founded.

David Gewanter will give a public reading in Miami as part of University of Wynwood's Visiting Poet Series. Gewanter's most recent collection is War Bird (Chicago, 2009). His previous collections include Sleep of Reason (Chicago, 2003) and In the Belly (Chicago, 1997). He was also co-editor, along with Frank Birdart, of Robert Lowell: Collected Poems (FSG, 2007). Gewanter currently teaches at Georgetown University.

Need a last minute gift for that special someone? Trying to make an impression on an attractive stranger? Need a cleverly worded "Yes, I'm really breaking up with you on Valentine's Day" note? Stop by the Poem Depot during Second Saturday's Wynwood Art Walk, and the Miami Poetry Collective will hand-craft a Valentine's Day ode, missive, or curse for you on one of their manual typewriters.

Poet Frank Giampietro visits Miami as part of the University of Wynwood's Visiting Poet Series, funded by the John and James L. Knight Foundation. He will read poems from his debut collection Begin Anywhere at Bardot Miami, Saturday, January 30, beginning at 8 p.m. Parking is available behind the building. The entrance is also around back, underneath a red awning.

The Miami Poetry Collective. will perform a special edition of the Poem Depot at Lucky You!2, an art raffle event at the Bakehouse Art Complex. As usual, MPC members will be writing poems on commission, but we'll also be writing poems about the more than 60 original artworks that will be on sale. Expect other surprises as well.

Presented in conjunction with the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, P. Scott Cunningham will lead a workshop on the traditional form of the haiku. No experience necessary. Space is limited.

No class until the Spring 2010 semester.

After a long day browsing and purchasing art, come by Bardot Miami for drinks and poems. Bardot's expert bartenders are making the cocktails, and the Miami Poetry Collective's writing the poems: you choose the topic, then relax on one of Bardot's couches, play pool, or eat some tapas at the bar while one of our poets bangs it out on a manual typewriter.

The Miami Poetry Collective will mount a Poem Depot in the Locust Projects courtyard. MPC t-shirts will be available for purchase.

Workshop Workshop, a factory and salon created by artist Jim Drain, poet P. Scott Cunningham, and sculptor Graham Hudson, produces zines that respond to Design Miami itself—its participants, objects, conversations, histories, narratives, suggestions and shapes. Even the detritus of the tent’s construction has been put to use by Hudson, who is in the act of constructing the space using leftover lumber, rubber, plastic, furniture—anything the fair and the city (the larger fair) has cast off. In Workshop Workshop, physical and metaphysical byproducts are recycled and put to use, creating an environment, a process, and a series of work that represents the heightened interplay that occurs in Miami each December, and creates a locus for collaboration.

Drain, Cunningham and Hudson will draw from a rotating—and ever-expanding—crew of local and international artists, designers and writers, in order to produce as many zines as it can during the length of fair, with as diverse a range of content as possible.

The Michael Bay Film and Chaos Studies Department at the University of Wynwood, in conjunction with the Borscht Film Festival, Presents: "Two Panel Discussions That Will Detonate A Truck Full of Suitcases Full of Grenades in Your Brain", graciously hosted by Gallery Diet. Free to the public. Terrible wine will be served to those 21+.

Panel One: An Intimate Conversation with the University of Wynwood Lady Pythons Jai-Alai Team, moderated by sportswriter Matt Gajewski, in which the truth behind the team's triumphs, failures, and scandals are at last revealed in full. Kleenex will be provided. Running time: 25 minutes.

Brief Intermission

Panel Two: The Greatest American Director in the History of America, and Possibly God-Almighty Incarnate: An Unbiased Examination of the Groundbreaking Cinematic Career of Michael Bay, Benevolent Overlord of American Cinema. Panel members include: Former NY Mets First Baseman Keith Hernandez*, Lucas Leyva's Twelve-Year Old Cousin, Poet Dave Landsberger, and Film Historian Andrew Hevia. Running time: 30 minutes.

*The part of "Keith Hernandez" will be played by a mustache.

Enter the Knight Arts' inaugural haiku competition, co-hosted by UW. First prize is $500; second prize is $250; and five honorable mentions will receive $100. For rules, themes, etc., please visit knightarts.org. Deadline to submit is November 21.

In a non-violent coup likely to be remembered as the "November Revolution", the Miami Poetry Collective takes over the Miami Book Fair. Come visit us at our booth during the Fri-Sun street fair, and come to our roman-a-fleuve reading on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. in Pavilion C. Presented in conjunction with the Palm Beach Poetry Festival & Gulf Stream Magazine. Special thanks to Lissette Mendez and the rest of the Book Fair staff for graciously hosting our coup.

Columbia University Professor Sadia Shepard, producer of The September Issue, the Sundance Award-winning documentary about the making of Vogue Magazine, speaks off the cuff with P. Scott Cunningham, reads from her book The Girl From Foreign (2008, Penguin Press), and shows clips from her films.

The Miami Poetry Collective performs at FIU's Wolfsonian Museum as part of the city of Miami Beach's Sleepless Night celebration. Come buy a poem or a t-shirt and support the Cent Journal Series.

Performances by the Jacuzzi Boys, Electric Bunnies, Feathers, Justin & Meatball, and the debut of Poetry Vs. Glen Rice.

The Miami Poetry Collective performs Poem Depot alongside 18 other artists/collectives inside the world-renowned Margulies Collection as part of a fundraiser for the Sundari Foundation and Lotus House Women's Shelter. Tickets may be purchased by going to the Lotus House website or by calling 305-365-2478.

University of Wynwood Visiting Poet Melanie Almeder reads from her book On Dream Street in celebration of the opening of There Goes the Neighborhood, an exhibition of work by Miami artists Tom Virgin, Brian Reedy, Mary Malm, and Claudia Scalise.

Co-sponsored by the Miami-Dade Public Library, the University of Wynwood is hosting poet Dr. Melanie Almeder, professor at Roanoke College in Virginia. She'll be directing a workshop with very limited seating. Register now by emailing art@mdpls.org or calling 305-375-5048.

Give them a topic or a theme and the Miami Poetry Collective will write you an original poem on a manual typewriter, for a nominal, pre-arranged fee. Copies of the Four Cent Journal, published by University of Wynwood Press, will also be available.

Come celebrate the beginning of Tigertail Productions' 30th season of programming, featuring a special appearance by the Miami Poetry Collective's Poem Depot, spoken word by Tigertail's Wordspeak Team, music by Boise Bob and His Backyard Band and video by Clifton Childree. Admission and drinks are free.

Give them a topic or a theme and the Miami Poetry Collective will write you an original poem on a manual typewriter, for a nominal, pre-arranged fee. Copies of the Four Cent Journal, published by University of Wynwood Press, will also be available.

A preview performance of Miller & Shellabarger’s "Untitled (Pink Tube)" alongside Professor Ana M. Luszczynska Ph.D. & P. Scott Cunningham in an open discussion of Jacques Derrida’s Rams: Uninterrupted Dialogue - Between Two Infinities, the Poem.