As the winter winds to a quiet (seriously, it was 70 degrees last week…) close and the days grow to accommodate our diurnal natures in a gray and glorious light, many of us will soon be out on the prowl to lubricate our social lives. With our soft, tropical bodies, most human animals tend to favor the warm breezes and sultry nights that accompany the evening glows of spring and summer (I am not generally one of these people; I am cold and aloof. You wouldn’t like me). Spring makes people twitterpated – poetic, blithe and bonny – and while our furry friend Puxatony Phil may have predicted 6 more weeks of winter (pssh…) get a jump start on your springtime merry-making tonight with some free poetry with your favorite penguins. Poets Adam Day and Michael Jeffrey Lee will be featured at Sarabande Books’ 21c Reading Series tonight at 7:30pm.
Held annually on the last Monday of every month – save for November and December – the 21c Reading Series showcases the talents of contemporary poets from around the country. Held in the world-renowned (and well-earned) accommodations of Louisville’s own 21c Museum Hotel, Sarabande’s Reading Series makes a perfect pairing of free literary and artistic display.
Following a musical kick off with performer Brent Mathis, award-winning poet, Adam Day, will take the stage. Currently serving as the Writer-in-Residence at Earlham College, Day (unfortunately not a relation) is the recipient of the 2010 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for his work in Badger, Apocrypha. With writing featured in the pages of the Boston Review, Guernica, AGNI, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review and APR, Day also received a 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award. In conjunction with his work as a poet, Day is an editor for the literary and comics journal, Catch Up and helps coordinate The Baltic Writing Residency in Latvia.
Fellow rising star, Michael Jeffrey Lee, will also share the spotlight at tonight’s reading. Currently inhabiting New Orleans (a belated Happy Fat Tuesday to you, sir), Lee balances his work with words with a daily grind of waiting tables, singing in nightclubs and daylighting as a typist. Currently at work on a novel, Lee is a frequent contributor to the publication, Conjunctions, and is an Associate Fiction Editor at the New Orleans Review.
Your first great spring fling may still be several weeks in the making, but poetry will forever be an appropriate warm-up for those in need of revitalization. Mix it up at Proof’s bar (my husband would highly recommend you try a Pimm’s Cup to pair with the poetry – it is also a refreshing burst of liquid love), and enjoy your monthly dose of posh and poetry. Bottoms up and groundhog be damned!
21c Museum Hotel is located at 700 West Main Street
Photo: Courtesy of Sarabande Books’ website www.sarabandebooks.org
