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 but…
There is a hitch in our plan for a public meeting. We will continue to present via ZOOM™, at least for a bit.
Check back here for updates.
Next Open Mic
Wednesday, January 12, 2022,
7:00pm.
Host: Lenora Good
An elementary school substitute teacher squelched any interest Lenora Rain-Lee Good may have had in poetry. She didn’t just squelch it, she hacked it into wee teensy pieces and stuffed it down the garbage grinder of the classroom trashcan.
It wasn’t until Ms. Good was thirty-something, working in the Aerospace industry as a technical illustrator on a missile program when, standing at her drafting table, a poem began to form. She worked on it during lunch and when finished, sent it off to Jerry Pournelle who published it in his There Will Be War series—and paid her! She’s been writing poetry ever since and has been most recently published in “Quill & Parchment,” “Five Willows Literary Review,” “WA129 anthology of Washington State Poetry,” chosen by the WA State Poet Laureate. Her chapbook, Blood on the Ground: Elegies for Waiilatpu, published by Redbat Books, her full-length book, Marking the Hours, and The Bride’s Gate and Other Assorted Writings are available through Amazon.com. She and two other local poets wrote and published Reflections: Life, the River, and Beyond by Jim Thielman, Jim Bumgarner are all available.
She may be reached through the Contact form on her website, Coffee Break Escapes at coffeebreakescapes.com. Two of her short fictions have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her favorite quote about poetry is from the late Robert A. Heinlein, “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” Oh, yeah, she does.
Virtual Open Mic Nights may continue, the in person schedule is uncertain.
In that case, a ZOOM™ link 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.