SNS | 11-25-23
This is it! Don’t miss it! The last SNS of 2023. Join me online in your post-Thanksgiving afterglow, for an evening of literary performance and open mic reading.
Featuring: S.C. Says & Jeffrey Bryant
Theme: Reflection
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday November 25, 2023
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List
The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 861 3916 9297
Passcode: 730944
Author Bios
Andre Bradford, a.k.a. S.C. Says, is an Austin-based slam poet who has been performing slam poetry since 2013. He's toured and featured at venues and universities across the country, and his work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Write About Now, The Edge radio, The Culture Trip, and Blavity. He is a two time Austin Poetry Slam Champion, the 2022 Texas Grand Slam Champion, and is the author of the poetry collection Golden Brown Skin. He also once popped a bag of popcorn without burning a single kernel, which is arguably one of his greatest achievements. His poetry covers a gamut of topics ranging from being mixed race, to social justice, to mental health awareness, to never settling in relationships. Slam poetry is an art form he loves due to its raw vulnerability and its ability to cultivate transparency and dialogues into many different walks of life.
Learn more at: scsayspoetry.com
Jeffrey Bryant is a queer poet/writer who lives in Los Angeles. He has been or will be published in the Los Angeles Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Poetic Diversity, the New Verse News, Poetrysuperhighway.com, and in the forthcoming November issue of Synchroniciti Magazine. His work has also appeared in the anthologies The Coiled Serpent from Tia Chucha Press; the 2020 Altadena Literary Review from Shabda Press; Shadowplay Literary Journal from the University of Arkansas and Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts from Mystic Boxing Commission Press.
Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!
LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!
Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, November 18, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.
Write-In Details/ Sign Up
November Writing Prompt:
As the year winds down and folds inward, towards food, friends and family, leaves turn to gold, days are shorter and colder—it’s a good time for gratitude, rest and reflection. What has this year meant to you? This life? Where are you going? Where have you been? This month’s theme of REFLECTION invites a multitude of interpretations.
Tell us a story; sing us a song; write us a poem.
SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:
Reflection as contemplation, as serious thought. Reflect inward on the self, or outward on the world. What matters? What have you learned or achieved? What do you long for? What are you surprised about? What is one good thing? One regret?
Reflection as self-portrait or ars poetica
Reflection as mirror— moonlight reflecting in river, cityscape reflecting sky; music reflecting a generation, children reflecting our best and our worst, war in the Middle East reflected in violence in the U.S., but also illuminating our humanity
Reflection as social commentary on literal reflection—how do we see ourselves clearly in a time when image is so profuse, so filtered and polished?
Perhaps try a palindrome or mirror poem—forms that repeat in reverse midway through or repeat across two columns like a Rorschach (see Rita Dove and Natasha Trethewey poems below for examples of each)
The truth is, most writing is reflective in some way, so this theme is wide open. To find your own way in, perhaps start by journaling or brainstorming about the year, then expand out, moving backwards or forward in time until you find a subject that speaks to this moment of reflection or an important past reflection or epiphany.
As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement, feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.
FOR INSPIRATION:
Mirror poem by Rita Dove
Myth poem by Natasha Trethewey
Reflections poem by Yusef Komunyakaa
Reflections on the Ruin of the Asylum at Saint-Rémy poem by Priscilla Atkins
I Make Promises Before I Dream poem by Tongo Eisen-Martin
Mirrored flash fiction by Jennifer Hudak
Mirror poem by Silvia Plath