Marion Palm | January 2016 Featured Poet

We are proud to present Brooklyn poet Marion Palm as our first featured poet for 2016.

Marion is a Brooklyn native born to Swedish immigrants. She was raised in a Swedish speaking home and integrates Swedish culture and language into her writing. She is best known as the founding director of Poets Under Glass, and has been a fixture on the NYC readings circuit since 1982. She was the first featured reader for Brooklyn Poetry Outreach at Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

Marion studied poetry writing formally at The Loft in Minneapolis, and at the Iowa Writers Conference before auditing Alan Ginsberg’s MFA classes at Brooklyn College. She has appeared on radio and television, on stage, in print and was most recently interviewed as a community advocate for the “New York Times”.

Marion has authored six poetry chapbooks, five non-fiction books, edited industry magazines and newsletters, and received a proclamation for “contributing to the cultural vitality of Brooklyn” from a former borough president. Marion’s book, Sunrise on Sunset Park, an inside out look at the Finnish Co-ops, has met surprising success with the real estate agent market and her book An Introduction to Poetry Writing, (exhibited at Cooper Hewitt, Bank Street and Parsons Colleges) -- a primer for giving poetry writing workshops with the primary purpose of improving communication between people -- was published by Thrivent Financial with a grant matched by St. Jacobi Lutheran Church. “The Lutheran”, a national magazine, will have a story in its February issue about Kairos Café, where she read for National Poetry Month last April. Marion’s most recent performance was on December 26 at Cornelia Street Café. She is presently a member of the Metro NY Synod Archive Committee, which oversees the Sutter Memorial Collection at Wagner College and is the poet in residence for St. Jacobi, a tri-lingual Lutheran church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Following Marion will be the open mic, so please put a poem in your pocket and come read with us, or just relax and enjoy some wonderful poetry! When: Tuesday, January 5, 2016

7:00-8:30 PM

Where: The BookMark Shoppe

8415 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11209 Directions: https://goo.gl/maps/GdsgwoGiaJ92
For more information please see our Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/TKBookMarkBards/

Omayma Khayat: December Featured poet 12/1/2015

Please join us Tuesday evening, December 1st, for the riveting poetry of Omayma Khayat.

As a mother of 3 children, Omayma hardly finds time to concentrate on her writing. With a passion for the written word she sneaks away to get the creative juices flowing, whether it’s at a café or a park bench, she finds an escape. After joining a writing group, her passion for writing became reignited. After getting over her fear of speaking in front of people, she began reading her poetry at Boulevard Books open mic and almost three years later her writing has flourished.

In December 2013, she was a participant in the “Hope” event honoring Anne Frank at the Good Lutheran Church and has recently been reading at the “Speak the Truth” poetry event. Currently Omayma is working on her first two collections, "Fragments of an Identity" and "Forgotten Memories".

Her poetry speaks through various levels of truths; they are a way for her to search for her part in the world, to know where she belongs. With a cultural aspect, taking from being totally culturally confused she bleeds her soul onto paper to find her mark in the world.

Feeling at times stuck between two worlds, her poetry explores the tug and pull of her identity. Her poems, at times, are the legend to a map, an exploration of countless journeys throughout her existence to find the place where she belongs. Her search of where the X is, where her treasure is buried, where her identity is defined.

Following Omayma will be the open mic. So put a poem in your pocket and come down and read with us.

Hope to see you there,

Anthony

When: Tuesday, December 1st

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Place: The BookMark Shoppe (www.bookmarkshoppe.com/)

8415 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11209
(Between 84th & 85th St)

Transportation: 
The BookMark Shoppe is close to the following MTA transit stops:
R train to 86th St & 4th Ave
B37 3rd Ave bus to 82nd St
B16 to 86th St & 4th Ave
B1 to 86th St & 4th Ave
B63 5th Ave bus to 5th Ave & 83rd St
S79 and S93 from Staten Island

Or see Google Maps for a map or www.mta.info for train and bus information.

Our new Facebook page is at www.facebook.com/TKBookMarkBards, please "Like" us!

June Featured poet Clarence Bess

Please join us as we close out our season with Brooklyn poet and subway chronicler Clarence Bess.

Clarence began writing as a means of escape, his writing blossomed beautifully into vivid, visceral, and compelling poetry. Clarence refers to his style as "open air" poetry. He cites that we all breath, it comes as natural as anything we must do to survive. As air, his poems are light, yet complex in their makeup. Clarence aims to bridge the gap between poetry for poets, and poetry for the everyman. 

Clarence has authored "Actuality Askew", "N Vers 1 Quarrels with Myself", "N Vers 2 Sincerely Chris", and "N Vers 3 Songs my Father Forgot to Tell Me". Please join us for a night of riveting poetry. Read with us, or just come down and enjoy.

We hope to have a musical interlude and then the open mic.

And don't forget everything is 15% off after the reading

Hope to see you there,

Anthony

Date: Wednesday, June 10

7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Boulevard Books & Cafe

7518 13th Ave (btw Bay Ridge Parkway & 76th St)

Brooklyn, NY 11228

https://www.facebook.com/events/1577566962532087/

Directions: https://goo.gl/maps/03E89

May Featured Poet: Evie Ivy - May 13

We are happy to announce Evie Ivy as our May featured poet.

Evie Ivy, dancer/instructor in the NYC poetry circuit. She hosts the Green Pavilion Poetry Event

on the last Wed. of the month. She has 3 chapbooks out and a book, "The First Woman Who Danced"

which includes most of her poems based on her experiences as a dancer. Her work appears

in several websites including Levure litteraire, Versewrights, Brooklyn Borough President's website-

"Poetic Brooklynites," Newspaper Tree El Paso, among others. Her book "Living in 12-Tone . . .

and other poetic forms" will be out soon.

As usual, following Evie will have a musical interlude and then the open mic. 

And don't forget, everything is 15% off after the reading! 

So put a poem in your pocket and come read with us.

Hope to see you there,

Anthony

When: Wednesday, May 13

7:00 pm - 8:30 pm (starting and ending promptly)

Where: Boulevard Books & Cafe

7518 13th Ave (btwn Bay Ridge Parkway & 76th St)

Brooklyn, NY 11228

Directions: https://goo.gl/maps/YQ3Lk

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1615588142019626/

This Wednesday evening 4/8/2015 event changed to Open Mic

Hi all,

We are sad to announce that due to circumstances beyond our control we are changing the format of this month's Tom Kane's Boulevard Bards to open mic, due to the passing of our featured poet, Zev Torres' father. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Zev and his family at this time.

We are still hoping to be able to feature Zev at Ken Sielgeman's Brooklyn Poetry Outreach at the end of the month.

Please put a couple of extra poems in your pocket and come down this Wednesday evening.

Original post:

http://tomkanebb.blogspot.com/2015/03/april-featured-poet-zev-torres-4815.html

April Featured poet: Zev Torres - 4/8/15

We are excited to have Zev Torres as our featured poet for the month of April. This is Zev's first time featuring at Tom Kane's Boulevard Bards.

Zev is a writer and spoken word performer who seeks to unearth hidden veins of emotion from ordinary experiences.

Zev’s poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications including, Great Weather for MEDIA’s  anthology, I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand, The Screech Owl, The Linnet’s Wings, First Literary Review-East, and Typoetic.us, and in three self-published chapbooks: Revision (2010), In Celebration of Hope and Change (2009) andPercussion Suite (2008).

Zev’s spoken word performances expand on his creative process, often melding his own poetry into new pieces, and freely employing the words of others -- Ovid, Neruda, Rossetti and Angelou, to name a few –creating elaborate and unexpected constructs.

In 2010, Zev founded the Skewered Syntax Poetry Crawls and, since 2008, has hosted Make Music New York’s annual Spoken Word Spectacular.

After Zev's reading we will have a musical interlude, and as always the open mic. So put a poem in your pocket and come down and read, or just relax and enjoy some great poetry and spoken word, and a tune or two.

Following the reading everything will be 15% off!

Please note: We will be starting promptly at 7:00 pm and ending by 8:30, so please be ready to limit your poems depending on the number of poets at the open mic.

When: Wednesday, April 8
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Where: Boulevard Books & Café
7518 13th Avenue (btw Bay Ridge Parkway & 76th St)
Brooklyn, NY 11228

Directions: https://goo.gl/maps/zmfCx

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/546066242201054/