Poetry Readings
A rapt audience at Nightbird Books on 31 August 2010
On the last Tuesday of every month (except December) OPWC features regional and nationally acclaimed poets. An open mic for audience members is a vital part of the evening.
We meet at Nightbird Books, 205 N. Dickson St. in Fayetteville. All ages are welcome to the Collective program, but be cautioned that the language and themes of contemporary poetry can be raw. Nightbird’s books and gifts will be for sale as well. Featured readers often offer their books and chapbooks (and sometimes CDs and DVDs) for sale, and are happy to autograph them.
Coming up
7 p.m., Tuesday, May 29, 2012 — Mary Angelino, a UA Creative Writing MFA in 2011. Mary grew up in Los Angeles and earned a bachelor’s in Creative Writing from Cal State, Northridge. The Nightbird Books website says she is the recipient of the UA’s McKean Poetry Prize, as well as the Lily Peter prize.
Upcoming Events
- Tuesday, June 26, 2012 — Regional writer Sloan Davis
- Tuesday, July 31, 2012 — Poet Shin Yu Pai, aassociate director for the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation in Conway. She has eight verse collections published.
- Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012 — Fiction writer and poet Tom Andes, formerly of Fayetteville and now in the San Francisco Bay area
- Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012 — In a solo performance, Fayetteville slam king Houston Hughes
- Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 — We welcome back Garry Craig Powell of the University of Central Arkansas, who later this year is publishing a novel-in-stories, Stoning the Devil.
- Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 — Adam Vines, professor at Alabama-Birmingham, whose collection The Coal Life: Poems was a finalist for the University of Arkansas Press’ 2012 Miller Williams Prize.
The collective is proud to have as a host Fayetteville’s locally owned independent bookstore Nightbird. It is a member of the American Booksellers Association, specifically its IndieBound program for independent bookstores and their fans. Nightbird Books now hosts bhk kafe (for Brick House Kitchen), open the same hours as the shop. It serves cookies, pastries, tea and coffee.
All ages are welcome at Nightbird Books.
Monthly Featured Readers
Here is how the Ozark Poets & Writers Collective chooses the featured artist for its monthly program.
The collective schedules its programs months in advance. We rarely audition formally, nor do we accept everyone who requests.
The board often picks featured writers by:
- Recommendation of at least two board members.
- Studying a poet’s published works plus video or audio (often via the poet’s website or social network page). and/or
- Seeing the poet doing 4-minute sets at many OPWC open mic’s.
We turn down some requesting writers because they don’t seem to have 30-45 minutes of top material or have a proven stage presence. We tell them that maybe with another year or two of writing and open mic’s or similar endeavors they may meet those two criteria, when we’ll reconsider.
Click for OPWC contact info. Northwest Arkansas has other comparable venues for writers and spoken wordsmiths. The main ones can be found on the OPWC links page.
