Wednesday Night Live at Caffe Aroma, an Intro to Visual Poetry Workshop at WNYBAC and a Pure Ink Poetry Slam are this week’s featured events.

Wednesday, March 18, 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.: Wednesday Night Live at Caffe Aroma featuring spoken word artist Irving “Team” Finks. Returning to Buffalo from Atlanta, GA, former Buffalo National Poetry Slam representative “Team”Finks will open month’s session of Wednesday Night Live . Co-founder and co-host of Living Poet Society, Buffalo’s last premiere spoken word showcase, Finks brought wordplay and an undeniable energy to stages across Buffalo. Open mic hosted by Ben Brindise and Justin Karcher to follow. 957 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public.

Saturday, March 21, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Poetic Matter: Intro to Visual Poetry with poet/visual artists Robin Jordan and Diego Espíritu, a hands-on visual poetry and typewriter art class in the Western New York Book Arts Center studio. Western New York Book Center, 468 Washingto0n St, Buffalo, NY 14203.

This introductory workshop is for adults and teens who are curious about the many forms visual poetry can take: collage, blackout poetry, asemic writing, cut-ups, found poetry, and typewriter art.

Taking a detour from more traditional approaches, we’ll treat language as a material you can cut, layer, rearrange, and “build” with. Participants will create asemic poems, work with found text to make blackout pieces, assemble collages through cut-ups, experiment with letterpress impressions for concrete poetry, explore montage using real-life objects, and play with typographic layouts using typewriters.

As we make, we’ll also ask bigger questions about authorship, originality, and what it means for literature and poetry to have weight, texture, and presence on and beyond the page. The visual poems produced in the workshop will contribute to a collective zine and a digital chapbook to be shared at this year’s Zine Fest.

No formal experience is required, though some familiarity with poetry, experimental literature, or visual art may be helpful. Participants should feel comfortable trying new approaches, working both independently and with others, and engaging in open-ended creative exercises.

Things to note:

• Makers of all skill levels ages 14+ are welcome. There is no prerequisite knowledge required.

• All necessary tools to participate are provided.

• Please read our ‘Plan Your Visit’ page to review our health & safety procedures.

Any questions about the class please email curious@wnybookarts.org

Hands-on visual poetry and typewriter art class in the Book Arts studio! Po
Cost: $20 – $35, visit wnybookarts.org/event/poetic-matter-intro-to-visual-poetry/ to register or for further information..

About the teaching artists

ROBIN JORDAN

Robin Lee Jordan (she/her) is a poet/writer + multi/interdisciplinary artist + teacher + event organizer. With a spirit of community-mindedness, she enjoys inciting artistic spontaneity, multimodal collaboration, and horizontal learning exchanges. She also really likes zines and is an organizer for ZineFest. Robin wrote the chapbooks Morning Blessing Poems (Foundlings Press) and THEY ATE EACH OTHER UP (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs). For 10 years, she ran a creative writing program for teens in Buffalo, NY and continues to celebrate and support young artists in her community.

DIEGO ESPIRITU, Volunteer Teaching Artist

Diego Espíritu (Mexico, 1990) holds a Philosophy degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and is a member of UNAM’s research and creation collective Arte+Ciencia. His work appears in Líneas en tierra. A Collection of Mexican Poems (Australian Poetry, 2019) and multiple editions of San Diego Annual Poetry. In 2022, he presented the lecture “Máquinas post-concretas: hacia una cartografía afectiva desde el arte con máquina de escribir” at the online conference Expanded Poetry: The Poetics and Politics of Repetition hosted by the Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa at the University of Porto. He teaches the expanded literature course Máquinas Post-Concretas on typewriter art, visual, and concrete poetry. In 2021, he joined the interdisciplinary arts program LIMINAL at CEIIDA, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. He is the author of Poemas Panks para community managers (Argentina: Santos Locos, 2016; México: Mantarraya, 2017) and the strange blue incandescence of mites (Paris: .able, 2024; Mexico: Imaginaria, 2023). Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Spanish Language and Literature at the University at Buffalo, focusing on poetics and visual writing.

Sunday, March 22, 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Pure Ink Poetry Slam, a monthly, two-round spoken word and poetry slam competition series hosted by Brandon Williamson. Pure Ink Poetry Slam is always an open slam without specific themes or requirements other than the general rules of slam. Sign up is from 3 p.m. Open mic and slam starts at 3:30. $5 for slammers, $10 for spectators. Cash prize for the winner. Visit the website www.pureinkpoetry.com for more information. Location: Em Tea Coffeecup Café, 80 Oakgrove Ave., Buffalo, NY.

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