With the COVID-19 situation, our in-person Open Mic Night meetings were temporarily derailed. However, we want to keep our poetry community engaged. Stay tuned for new Poetry options this Open Mic season!
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 (& first of the new season) Open Mic is scheduled for
Wednesday, September 14, 2022,
7:00pm.
The YCP final Open Mic Night of the 2021-22 season on May 11 was a fabulous finale to a great season of enjoying original poetry from our Eastern Cascadia poets!
Margaret France wowed a good hybrid crowd (25 in-person+16 Zoomers) with a presentation from her just-out book: “The Genius of Bob’s Burgers: Comedy, Culture & Onion-Tended Consequences.”
You can now attend Open Mic via ZOOM™ OR IN PERSON!
In person is at the new Larson Gallery, 1606 W. Nob Hill Blvd.
We will gather together in person, though we are asking that people mask up and bring proof of vaccination if they do attend live.
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.