Join Greater Astoria Historical Society for its 6th annual "April is National Poetry Month" Reading, featuring Maria Lisella, Olena Jennings, and Ama Birch + a poetry open mic. Join in to listen &/or read your work, or that of a favorite poet! G.A.H.S. Board Member & poet, DeeAnne Gorman, will lead the evening.
You must RSVP via Eventbrite to attend/receive the link. Separately, if you wish to read a poem in the open mic, please send an email to: [email protected] with "POETRY" in the subject line by 4:30 pm the day of the event (Monday, April 25) . Whether 1 or 2 pieces (of reasonable length) may be read will depend upon the number of readers that sign up that evening.
Maria Lisella’s poems have recently appeared in Mom Egg Review, The Red Letter Poem series, Spoke8, Red Wheelbarrow; online at Poems for Dylan Thomas 2022; and in the newly released anthologies From the Inside: NYC through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here; Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice and Without a Doubt from NYQ Books, as is her collection Thieves in the Family. The sixth Queens Poet Laureate, she is an American Academy of Poet Laureate Fellow and contributor to La Voce di New York, Jerusalem Post and Never Stop Traveling.
Olena Jennings is the author of the poetry collection Songs from an Apartment (2017) and the chapbook Memory Project (2018.) Her novel Temporary Shelter was released in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press. Her translation from Ukrainian of Vasyl Makhno’s collection Paper Bridge is forthcoming from Plamen Press. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and an MA from the University of Alberta. She is the founder and curator of the Poets of Queens reading series.
Ama Birch is the author of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow; Faces in the Clouds; Sonnet Boom!; Ferguson Interview Project, and a video game available for Android, "Space Quake by Ama Birch." She has a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts from the State University of New York at New Paltz and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. She has been published by Blue Light Press, Great Weather for Media, Autonomedia, A Gathering of the Tribes, Vail/Vale, Vitrine, Insert Blanc Press, Live Mag!, Fell Swoop, Apricity Press, CalArts Creative Writing Program, the State University of New York, Grove Atlantic, Columbia University, and The Brooklyn Rail.