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)
Next Open Mic is scheduled for
Wednesday, December 13, 2023,
7:00pm.
Host – Claire Carpenter
Claire will be reading from her new chapbook “Skinny-Dipping Before Breakfast.”
Claire Carpenter roams the streets of Yakima on a green bicycle, reciting poems to herself. In her wilder days, she once spent a winter at a research station in Antarctica and a summer on a sailboat in the Galapagos Islands. Now she teaches biology at Yakima Valley College and raises goats and boys and free-range vegetables. She wanders sagebrush-covered ridges with her dog, dreaming of future adventures.
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.