Buffalo Area Poetry & Literature Calendar (week of April 21 to April 27)
Monday, April 21, 6 p.m.: Steven Duong will join poets Rachelle Toarmino, Diego Espíritu, Spencer Williams, and Mathilda Cullen in a reading at 6 p.m. on Monday, April 21 at Rust Belt Books, 415 Grant St., Buffalo. The reading will serve as the Buffalo stop for Steven Duong's national tour for his debut collection At the End of the World There Is a Pond (Norton) and for the Buffalo launch of Rachelle Toarmino's new chapbook My Science (Sixth Finch Books). Free and open to the public.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Steven Duong is the author of At the End of the World There Is a Pond, a debut poetry collection published by W. W. Norton. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Guernica, and the Yale Review, among other publications. His short fiction is featured in Catapult, The Drift, and The Best American Short Stories 2024. A creative writing fellow in poetry at Emory University, he lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Rachelle Toarmino is a poet and multidisciplinary writer from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection That Ex (Big Lucks Books, 2020) and several chapbooks, most recently My Science (Sixth Finch Books). Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Electric Literature, Iterant, Literary Hub, Poets.org, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in poetry at UMass Amherst, where she received an Academy of American Poets Prize. She is also the founding editor in chief of the literary journal Peach Mag and the creator and lead instructor of Beauty School, an independent poetry school. She lives in Buffalo.
Tuesday, April 22, 6 p.m.: Buffalo Futures "State of the Future: Poetry Slam."
Join Buffalo Futures at Buffalo Iron Works for an evening of inspiring poetry and performances. The event will feature an exciting lineup of poets and artists, including A.I. The Anomaly, Labrin, and more. This is a great opportunity to engage with the community and celebrate the future of poetry and spoken word and its impact on our community.
49 Illinois St, Buffalo. General admission is $15.
Tuesday, April 15, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesday Night Open Mic Series at the Em Tea Coffeecup Café. All are welcome whether new to poetry or a long-time member of the community. 80 Oakgrove Ave., Buffalo, NY. Free and open to the public.
Tuesday, April 22, 7 p.m.: The University at Buffalo Exhibit X Fiction Series presents an evening with Julia Elliot.
Julia Elliott has been described by Jeff VanderMeer as the “Angela Carter for our time,” and her new collection Hellions (April 2025) is featured on LitHub and by Time Magazine as one of the “Most Anticipated Books of 2025.” Elliott is also the author of the story collection The Wilds, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch (both from Tin House). Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Tin House, Conjunctions, Granta (online), and the New York Times. She has won a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, and her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. She teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina and lives in Columbia with her husband, daughter, and five hens.
Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.
Wednesday, April 23, 7 p.m.: An evening with author Thomas Swick as he discusses his memoir, Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer.
Swick, born in Phillipsburg, NJ, and now residing in Fort Lauderdale, FL, is the author of four books. His work has appeared in national magazines, literary quarterlies, and multiple editions of The Best American Travel Writing. In 1980, Swick married a Polish woman in Warsaw and spent two transformative years teaching English, learning Polish, and witnessing the rise of Solidarity and the imposition of martial law—a period marked by dramatic, world-changing events.
Julia Boyer Reinstein Library, 1030 Losson Rd., Cheektowaga, NY 14227. Free and open to the public.
Thursday, April 24, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.: Kenmore Village Improvement Society presents an Open Mic Poetry Night. Free and open to the public. 7 Warren Ave., Kenmore, N.Y.
Thursday, April 24, 7:30 pm.: University at Buffalo Poetics Program Plus reading featuring Daisy Atterbury and Joe Hall.
Daisy Atterbury is a poet, essayist and scholar.
The Kármán Line (2024), a St. Lawrence Book Award Finalist and debut book of experimental prose and poetry, was published by Rescue Press in October, 2024 . Described as "a new cosmology" (Lucy Lippard) and "a cerebral altar to the desert" (Raquel Gutiérrez), The Kármán Line investigates queer life and fantasies of space and place with an interest in unraveling colonial narratives in the American Southwest.
Atterbury is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, and holds a joint lectureship with the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. In 2025, Atterbury joined the board of FRI: the Feminist Research Institute at UNM.
Joe Hall is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Fugue & Strike (2023) and Someone’s Utopia (2018). With Chad Hardy, he co-authored The Container Store Vols I & II (2012). With Cheryl Quimba, he co-authored the chapbook May I Softly Walk (2014). Hall has performed and delivered talks nationally at universities, living rooms, squats, and/or rivers in most of the 50 states as well as Canada and Washington, DC. He participates in Hostile Books, a publishing collective dedicated to radical materiality, with Ryan Kaveh Sheldon and Angela Veronica Wong,
Hall is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University. He has taught community based creative writing workshops through the Worker Center in Buffalo and Just Buffalo Literary Center. His college teaching experience includes all levels of undergraduate creative writing and environmental literature. His current research project involves settler colonial aesthetics in modern American ecopoetics.
Western New York Book Arts Center, 468 Washington St., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.
Friday 6:30 pm.: The Carnegie Art Center (CAC) will celebrate National Poetry Month with a performance by Emmy Award winning poet and spoken word artist Jillian Hanesworth.
Jillian Hanesworth was born and raised on the East side of Buffalo NY. She began writing at the age of 7 when she would write songs for her mother to sing in church. Over time, Jillian’s writings evolved into short stories and poetry that narrates the lived experiences of her community. Since her first professional poetry performance on February 1st, 2017, Jillian has performed over 500 times in various cities and countries. Jillian is the founder of Literary Freedom, a nationally recognized literacy access program called Buffalo Books, the first and founding Poet Laureate of Buffalo, and the 2024 national Emmy award recipient in the Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing category.
Carnegie Art Center, 240 Goundry St, North Tonawanda, NY. Free and open to the public.
Friday, March 28, 8:30 pm.: Ground & Sky Poetry open Mic at Caffe Aroma hosted by Joel Lesses. 957 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.
Saturday, April 26, 7:30 p.m.: Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center and Talking Leaves Books present a book launch reading and book-signing for acclaimed performance artist and writer Karen Finley’s new book COVID Vortex Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco (City Lights Books).
COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco meditates on the extraordinary time of loss, isolation, and bizarre rituals of the Covid era and its aftermath. First performed at sold-out theaters in New York, where the Village Voice compared Karen Finley to Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, this vivid suite of poems invokes a maelstrom of feelings that will make you laugh and cry, sometimes on the same page. In COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, Finley processes the pandemic in all its complexity-from the collective coping strategies during isolation and loss to the absurd new habits we acquired, from handwashing to wiping down groceries to decorative double masks and zoom dance parties. The New York City hotspot echoes an earlier AIDS era; that rage and sorrow remain part of the City’s DNA. During COVID, tragic historic events such as the police murder of George Floyd and the continued brutality on Black and brown bodies, challenged the nation. Revolution took to the streets. The reversal of Roe v Wade and the criminalizing of trans peoples’ bodies, mental health realities, houselessness, essential workers’ rights, and social isolation brought desperate conditions. Finley reflects on these traumas, asking how do we employ love despite the hate, to encourage humanity despite proliferating violence? On the fifth anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco looks back while also looking forward, offering art as salvation, and the deep belief in the power of words, compassion, and humor to transcend the harsh realities of today.
Karen Finley is an artist, performer, and poet. Born in Chicago, she received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Finley was the named plaintiff for the Supreme Court case Finley v. NEA that challenged the decency provision in government grants to artists through the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been presented internationally such as the Barbican in London; Lincoln Center, New York City; Art Basel in Miami; and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others. She is the author of nine books, including Grabbing Pussy (OR Books, 2018), the 25th anniversary edition of Shock Treatment (City Lights, 2015), and The Reality Shows (Feminist Press, 2011). A recipient of many awards and grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is a professor in Art and Public Policy at New York University. She lives in Westchester County, New York.
Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.
Sunday, April 27, 2 p.m.: Poetry & Collage: An Afternoon with Geoffrey Gatza.
This event will feature a live reading from Self Geofferential, Gatza's most recent collection of poetry, accompanied by a gallery showing of original collages featured in the book.
Self Geofferential is both a poetic and visual self-portrait — an exploration of memory, identity, and language through experimental verse and handmade collage. The book has been described as “a poetics of the handmade” and “a singular, exhilarating act of self-inquiry.” Each collage is constructed with watercolor-painted paper and arranged on matte boards, presenting visual works that speak in tandem with the written poems.
Brighton Place Library 999 Brighton Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150
Admission is free and open to the public.