Dustin Walker readingThom Francis, el presidente, was a busy man tonight, hosting the open mic, keeping score & slamming. The open mic offered a great variety of poems & poets, starting with Leslie Michelle doing a poem by someone else, then D…
On Tuesday, April 17, right in the middle of Word Fest week we will the holding the 16th installment of the Nitty Gritty Slam. This time around we are ruight
The first 12-Hour Word Fest Open Mic took place at the 2009 Albany Word Fest. In an effort to give everyone an opportunity to share their word at the annual
This was a night of pseudonyms as there were more folks on stage with alternate names than their given names. Actually there were a couple of poets who had a
It was such a slow crowd growing — who knew if we’d have enough for the Slam, let alone judges (always a problem), but the folks kept on coming in (while even Mojavi the open mic host was late). But AlbanyPoets Thom (el presidente) Francis took over …
For the 2003 Albany Word Fest we decided to move the event inside the walls of Valentine’s, which was at the time the home of the monthly open mic School
At the “unlucky” NGS #13 we found that sometimes less is more. Less staff, less poets, but still a great night of spoken word with at least one new friend
For the thirteenth Nitty Gritty Slam, we were back home downstairs at Valentines. On this evening, we had to deal with a “less is more” situation as a few members
It has taken a while but I’m losing my nostalgia for the Lark Tavern, the grieving process is coming to an end, with the success & vibrancy of this series at McGeary’s. Perhaps it is the cozy back room where poets listen to poets, where the shocke…
Tonight, much to the chagrin of the official Slam bartender Kim, we were upstairs at Valentines to make room for a band in the usual poets’ spot. We were just as funky & even louder to carry our voices over the sound of electric guitars & drum…
We were upstairs for this edition of the Nitty Gritty Slam, battling the band downstairs. The voices of the poets rose above it all and we were treated to some
Last night at Valentines, we saw three new slam poets take the stage for the 11th installment of the Nitty Gritty Slam. We also had a surprise sacrificial poet in
