COUPLET is a quarterly reading series, produced, curated and hosted by poet Leah Umansky since 2011. It features both emerging and established poets and is co-hosted by The Red Room.
[Please note this is a historical building and sadly does not have handicap accessibility. The event is on the top floor and there is a two drink minimum].
This event is sponsored by Poets & Writers Magazine.
Readers for our National Poetry Month Edition are Rita Dove, Jennifer Espinoza, Majda Gama, Julia Kolchinsky, Abi Pollokoff, and Alina Stefanescu.
Rita Dove served as US Poet Laureate from 1993–1995. Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and the 2023 honorary National Book Award, she also received the 1996 National Humanities Medal from President Clinton and the 2011 National Medal of Arts from President Obama. Other recent honors are the 2021 Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where she currently serves as vice president for literature, a 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation and both the 2019 Wallace Stevens Award and the 2024 Leadership Award from the Academy of American Poets. Among her numerous books are Thomas and Beulah, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, Sonata Mulattica, Playlist for the Apocalypse and Collected Poems 1974-2004. Her drama The Darker Face of the Earth was staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the National Theatre in London, and her song cycles with composers John Williams, Tania Leon, Richard Danielpour and others were performed at Tanglewood, Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington. Rita Dove teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia.
Jennifer Espinoza is a poet whose work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, the American Poetry Review, The Rumpus, Poem-a-day @poets.org, and elsewhere. She is the author of I'm Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (Big Lucks), THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS (The Accomplices) and I Don't Want To Be Understood (Alice James Books). She holds an MFA in poetry from UC Riverside and currently resides in California with her wife, poet/essayist Eileen Elizabeth, and their cat and dog.
Majda Gama is the award-winning author of In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls (Wandering Aengus Press) and The Call of Paradise, (Two Sylvia’s, 2023). Her poetry has been honored with the Graybeal Gowen award for Virginia poets from Shenandoah and the Gregory Djanikian scholar award from Adroit. Majda’s poems can be found in Ploughshares, POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Swamp Pink and Tupelo Quarterly. She is based in Northern Virginia where she tends to a native plant garden that is certified as a home wildlife sanctuary by the Audubon Society. Majda is currently a co-host of the long-running DC literary salon Café Muse. She loves cardamom in her tea, saffron in her chocolate, and rosewater in everything. www.majdagama.com.
Julia Kolchinsky (formerly Dasbach) emigrated from Dnipro, Ukraine when she was six years old. She is the author of four poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, Don't Touch the Bones, 40 WEEKS, and PARALLAX (The University of Arkansas Press, 2025) finalist of the Miller Williams Prize. Her next book, When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), is a collaborative collection with Luisa Muradyan. Her nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, Shenandoah, The Account, and won Michigan Quarterly Review's Prize in Nonfiction. She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University.
Abi Pollokoff is a poet, editor, and book artist. Her work has appeared in publications such as TriQuarterly, Denver Quarterly, and Guernica, and in such installations as the Summit Sound, the Seattle Convention Center sound installation. Abi was named a 2021 Jack Straw Writer and a 2019 Hugo Fellow. She has held residencies from the Seventh Wave, the Seattle Review of Books and the Alice Gallery. In 2012, Abi won the Anselle M. Larson/Academy of American poets Prize for Tulane University, judged by Caryl Pagel. She was a finalist for the 2022 Coniston Prize, judged by Dorianne Laux, and the 2022 Gatewood Prize, judged by Julie Carr, and a semifinalist for the 2021 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. Her poem "aubade" was a finalist for the 2019 Omnidawn Broadside Contest, judged by Dan Beachy-Quick. In addition to her own writing, Abi is the managing editor of Poetry Northwest Editions and works in publishing. Abi received her MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, by way of Seattle, New Orleans and the Chicagoland area. www.abipollokoff.com.
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as editor, reviewer, and critic for various journals and is currently working on a novel-like creature. Her new poetry collection will be published by Sarabande in 2025. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.
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