Brandon Amico. Photo by Nicole McConville.
“I lean into the sweat / (Right down to where the weather really is),” wrote the late Liam Rector in his poem “Fat Southern Men in Summer Suits.” No matter your size or choice of clothing, it seems we’ve reached that point in summer that we all have to lean into the sweat. How about leaning into our local poetry, spoken word and storytelling scene as well?
Poetry in the Boro
Sunday evening, July 14, Poetry in the Boro will be back at Murfreesboro Little Theatre, 702 Ewing Blvd., for a free reading and open mic. This month’s event will also include literary-inspired music. Featured artists will be singer-songwriter Kelly Ormsby and poet Branon Amico.
Amico, of Asheville, North Carolina, is the author of Disappearing, Inc. (Gold Wake Press, 2019). He is a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Regional Artist Grant and the winner of Southern Humanities Review’s Hoepfner Literary Award for Poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Verse Daily.
Ormsby is an Americana singer-songwriter and educator. First published with Sony ATV in 2000, the Mississippi native’s love of language and stories have led to two English degrees and collaborative opportunities with other seekers and pickers over her 20-plus years in Tennessee. Her song “Red Light,” co-written with Moe Loughran, was featured in the indie film Riders.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the program starts at 7. An hour of open mic for poetry and spoken word follows. For more details on this free monthly event, see Poetry in the Boro on Facebook.
The Bloom Stage
The Bloom Stage, a quarterly multi-genre event, is seeking submissions from storytellers and poets interested in performing in a show on Thursday, Aug. 22, in Murfreesboro.
The theme of the upcoming show is “Dog Days” and can include creative work closely or loosely related to summer, back to school, harvest and, of course, dogs, cats or other pets. Since the term “dog days” dates back to Greek and Roman times, producer Kara Kemp says organizers are also interested in work related to mythology, the solar system or Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
Submissions are due by midnight, July 21. Find details on Facebook or by emailing karajkemp@gmail.com.
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“Net Worth” by Brandon Amico appears in his book Disappearing, Inc. and was first published in the journal interrupture.
Net Worth
by Brandon Amico
Let’s talk equalities, exchange rates:
There are sixteen pebbles in a rock, three rocks
in a stone, and little to no stones
in a sawbuck. A fist is scarcely adequate
replacement for a heart, regardless of relative size.
Look over there—so that’s where
the buck stops, where unstoppable force
meets immovable debt. This war
is impressive—you can tell by the gift shop.
Multiply a four-year institution of learning
by its cost-to-benefit ratio, repeat
for the number of American Dreamers
and you’ve got yourself a reliable
income base (Solve for “You”). It’s an elite
university, we’re an exceptional nation—you can tell
by the incarceration rates, the efficiency
with which we feed bodies into the chipper,
the economy of our languages, recessing.
Look for the littlest portions of self,
snapped down to fit in a headline, the sum of parts
being measured and meted for spices and gold.
