Kory Wells reading at Poetry in the Boro
“here is the deepest secret nobody knows” – E.E. Cummings
To paraphrase Cummings, here is the deepest secret I think too few people know: the ’Boro’s art scene is booming, and that includes numerous opportunities this month to hear or share poetry—often with music, art, comedy or storytelling in the mix.
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Friday, Feb. 7
Under 1 Roof, a quarterly 21-and-up show with music, comedy, poetry and art, returns to The Warehouse in Murfreesboro. Comic and poet Nick Bush will host, welcoming musicians Hannah Taylor, Justin Barnes and Tyra Thompson, poets Darius Lewis, Caitlyn Parris and C.A. Williams, and comedians Joshua Black, Corey Knox and Mo Vaughn to the mic.
Artist Meagan Armes and DJ Derrick Peppers will also be adding their artistic vibes. Admission is $10 on Eventbrite or $15 at the door; a cash bar is available. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30. Find more information on Facebook.
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Sunday, Feb. 9
This month’s Poetry in the Boro will be downtown at the Walnut House, 116 N. Walnut St., for a free event sponsored in part by MTSU Write. In the first hour of the evening, feature Cara Dees, a Cincinnati poet with Nashville connections, will be joined by recent contributors to Collage, MTSU’s student-produced, bi-annual magazine of creative arts. After a short break, an hour of open mic follows. All styles of poetry and spoken word are welcome.
Dees is the author of the debut collection, Exorcism Lessons in the Heartland, selected by Ada Limón for the 2018 Barrow Street Book Prize. Currently a PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati, she holds an MFA from Vanderbilt University. Among other distinctions, she is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2016 and 2019, Harvard Review, Poetry Daily and elsewhere.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the event begins at 7. For more information, including this month’s writing challenge, see poetryintheboro.org.
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Thursday, Feb. 13
The creativity will continue at the Walnut House when the local storytelling series Bloom: The Stage Where Our Stories Grow holds its next one-night show. Entitled “Mixtapes and Mirrors,” the evening will pay homage to love, relationships and how we see ourselves in their complex and various forms. Participating creatives include musician Gabe David, artists Ryan Frizzell and Gregory Lannom, poet Mike James, and storytelling by Diane Austin, Hil Hoover, Gary Parker and organizers K.J. Kemp and Kory Wells.
Two open-mic slots, five minutes each, will be available to interested audience members to share a story, spoken word or poetry related to love and relationships or their metaphors for the evening, mixtapes or mirrors.
Donations will be accepted at the door, which opens at 6:30 p.m. for the 7 p.m. show. Ticket reservations are encouraged by contacting karajkemp@gmail.com. All reservations are released 10 minutes prior to show time.
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Also in February
Check out Radical Arts’ Late Night for a Thursday on Feb. 20 at The Boro Bar and Grill (their January show included poetry) and Count Drahoon’s Feature of Fright on Feb. 27 at Nick Newton’s and Spinelli’s.
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A love poem for Valentine’s Day.
Invitation to Love
by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)
Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.
You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it to rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.
Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Come when the year’s first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter’s drifting snows,
And you are welcome, welcome.
