With the COVID-19 situation, our in-person Open Mic Night meetings were temporarily derailed. However, we want to keep our poetry community engaged so we offer options! Keep reading…
The Yakima Coffeehouse Poets presents Open Mic Night on the second Wednesday of each month, September through May, usually held at the Larson Gallery, YVCC Campus.
Starting in April, our Open Mic meetings have a choice — via ZOOM™ OR IN PERSON at the new Larson Gallery!
(Across the street from the old Larson Gallery)
Please bring proof of vaccination and a mask.
Next Open Mic is scheduled for
Wednesday, December 14, 2022,
7:00pm.
Hosted by: Kristy Webster
Kristy Webster is a queer, Latina writer and the author of The Gift of an Imaginary Girl: Coco and Other Storiespublished by A Word with You Press in 2015 and most recently, Heretic: a story of spiritual liberation in poems, pubished by Beyond the Veil Press.
Kristy earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University and a Master’s in Teaching from Heritage University. Her work has appeared in several online journals such as Lunch Ticket, Pithead Chapel, The Feminist Wire, Shark Reef Literary Magazine, Pacifica Literary Review, The Molotov Cocktail, and Connotation Press. Her essay, Mother Fire, Father Ice is featured in the Red Hen anthology Two Countries: U.S. Sons and Daughters of Immigrant Parents. Recently, her poems were featured in the Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal and The Yakima Coffeehouse Poets chapbook. Kristy currently teaches English composition and literature at the Yakima Valley College in Grandview, Washington.
You can now attend Open Mic via ZOOM™ OR IN PERSON!
In person is at the new Larson Gallery, 1606 W. Nob Hill Blvd.
When we gather together in person, masks are optional.
Otherwise, a ZOOM™ link will be circulated by email the day before the event
for those of you who want to attend virtually.
If you wish to read, please sign up via email:
Like the Poetry contest, Open Mic Night got its start at Allied Arts. The event was initiated in 2005 by local poet Elaine Smith. Then encouraged by the former Allied Arts director Elizabeth Herres Miller and her successor Jessica Moskwa. They felt a monthly forum where local poets could read original work would complement the annual contest. They were right.
Poets Claire Carpenter, Dotty Armstrong, Chuck Forster, Rod Nelson, Linda Brown, Ed Stover, Elaine Smith, and Mark Fuzie have kept Open Mic alive.
Open Mic Night was popular at the outset and remains so as a program now run by the Yakima Coffeehouse Poets. Come read a poem and meet your fellow Yakima poets.