First Tuesdays Reading Series

This neighborhood open mic is held, as the name suggests, on the first Tuesday of the month at Espresso 77 in Jackson Heights. Hosted by Richard Jefferey Newman, the series was launched in 2012 and runs monthly from September through June.

"While we have a commitment to highlighting writers from Queens, our featured readers have come to us from other boroughs, other states, and even other countries. Our open mic is one of the most hospitable around. Almost every month, there is someone who gets up to read her or his work for the first time, and we have regulars who come to read not their own work, but the work of others who are important to them, like the woman who has, for the past three years, been keeping her mother’s memory alive by reading her poetry for us."

As a bonus, the audience votes on their favorite line from each reading and Richard then compiles them into a cento, which can be funny, touching, absurdist, or all three, and which is shared with the audience at the end of the evening.

This week's reading features Barry Wallenstein. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, the most recent being At the Surprise Hotel and Other Poems [Ridgeway Press, 2016] and Drastic Dislocations: New and Selected Poems [New York Quarterly Books, 2012]. His poetry has appeared in over 100 journals, including Ploughshares, The Nation, Centennial Review, and American Poetry Review. His analytical text, Visions & Revisions: The Poets’ Practice [T.Y. Crowell, 1971], was reissued in a new and expanded edition by Broadview Press [2002]. Barry is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the City University of New York and an editor of the journal, American Book Review. His website is www.barrywallenstein.com.

What: First Tuesdays

Where: Espresso 77 - 35-57 77th St, Jackson Heights, NY 11372

When: Tuesday October 3, 2017 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm