4/3/2017 MARK STATES RETURNS + CHRIS CHANDLER 7pm at the Monkey House, Berkeley

4/3/2017 Founders Night – Mark States returns to feature!  Chris ChandlerCo-features!  Please contribute to his airfare with a donation during any of our sessions.  This session will be held at Monkey House so as to accommodate more people. 1638 University Ave, Berkeley, CA 94703

This venue is NOT a food establishment. Please dine before or after.  You may bring beverages.     Due to allowing time for the celebration, no open mic this night.

Poetry Expressed Magazine Poets feature 3/27/2017

3/27/2017  All Poets published in January 2017 PoetryExpressed.com  Magazine are invited to read as co-features. hosted by J.D.
(Need a prompt? "There May Not Be Time" -- you don't have to use those words.)

Leila Rae features 3/20/2017

3/20/17 Leila Rae  hosted by Bruce
(Need a prompt? "Hot Water"  -- you don't have to use those words.)

Leila Rae is the editor/publisher at Pandemonium Press, located in Berkeley, CA. She edits and publishes three (3) online journals: riverbabble, Doorknobs & BodyPaint , and Day w/o Art . She also publish poetry small editions of monographs, chapbooks, and anthologies.  Forthcoming this summer Lulu & Ramón, her latest poetry collection.  Leila received her MA in English and Creative Writing from CSUEB. She has lived in Berkeley, CA since 1956.

3/13/2017 G. Macias Gusman Reads

3/13/2017 G. Macias Gusman hosted by Jim
(Need a prompt?"Spandex"  -- you don't have to use that exact word.)

G. Macias Gusman is a factory dog, a backhoe for the sun, a champion for splinters and blisters looking for homes on working hands: A Poet growing organically. G. Macias belongs to Davenport Iowa but as given his soul over to Oakland Ca. G Macias Gusman has been a feature reader at Bay Area Generations, Get Lit, Passages on the Lake, Saturday Night Special an east bay open mic, Write from the Gut, and read in the first leg of 2016 Beast Crawl Lit Festival (let’s be truthful if there’s an open mic you’ll find G. Macias) and has been publish in The Borfski Press Magazine, Red Fez, BayAreaGenerations. 

Cost of living 
The last thing I got me was an Aqualung before I quit my day job. 
It only cost 23 hours under the sun at a landscapers pay rate. The 
screen that’s holding in my atmosphere last 3 days before a red 
dwarf star tittering on super nova implodes in my right writing 
hand, burning bigger holes completely through it. I use a left palm 
readers’ influence every other odd day turning into S, but like a 
leap year birthday I rarely break even. Reminiscent of a hole in the 
heart, screens don't burn evenly; they will smolder away entirely; 
eventually. A brass screen is a necessary obsidian evil like sea 
green cash and, existing ain’t cheap when you’re not cheapening 
your existence. I wish things we needed came for free but the stuff 
that's free, costs a great living; still, I sold my soul to the words on 
credit. You see I like being broke but unbroken, untethered and 
free to roam around like a good life recorder should; record-play                           
are we rolling?                                                                                                
Life yielded a pink slip, hand-job, a little bit of dough, and told me 
good luck out there. We parted ways on friendly terms. We’re both 
wild cards unable to work together. Sometimes though I hate to 
admit, I miss that 12.50 an hour my bad back and simple sweat 
brought in when “A Living” sends the red wolf to the black door 
and I don’t have that umber rake or tuscan sun shovel to save me 
no more as I try to write these poems to the cost of life.