Hey gente, I am picking up where I left off in the last two blog posts and focusing on a few reading and performance series that call Houston home.
This week is a look at the Write About Now poetry slam and open mic series. Of the four series I have decided to write about, WAN (as it is known around here) is the youngest. This nonprofit poetry collective has been around for less than ten years, but in that time the vibrant platform has garnered a great following with younger writers here in H-Town. Currently the series is hosted at a space that has been home to several other notable reading series, AvantGarden. In their back courtyard you’ll find WAN events every Wednesday night, and every performance is worth the $5 to get in.
The weekly events are almost always hosted by WAN’s founder, Amir Safi, and usually take the form of a slam. Judges are selected on the night of the slam and there is a featured reader who closes out the night. The slams start at 7:00 PM and end around 10:00 PM, and sometimes a little later. There is a super healthy crowd that attends and the energy is electric. I always have a great time when I’m able to go and I look forward to hearing new up-and-coming poets read their work.
AvantGarden is a local bar that has had a few names and changed with the times. The one thing I love about the space is that it has always been home to a poetry community—it’s actually one of the few spaces that was around in my early days of open mics. I can confidently recommend a WAN show to anyone. It is always a good time.
Write About Now poetry slam and open mic series at AvantGarden in Houston. Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.