Poets Samantha Thornhill (w/Valerie June) & Veronica Golos + Open Mic - Thursday, March 31

Mike Geffner Presents The Inspired Word features the incredibly talented international poet Samantha Thornhill (accompanied by guitarist Valerie June) and award-winning poet Veronica Golos, making a special guest appearance coming all the way from Taos, New Mexico.

There will also be a 15-slot open mic (open not only to poets and spoken word artists but fiction/nonfiction writers, comedians, monologists, singers, and musicians).

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When: Thursday, March 31, 2011

Where: One and One Bar & Restaurant (downstairs Nexus Lounge)
76 East 1st Street (corner of 1st Avenue)
Manhattan, NYC
Phone: (212) 598-9126

Doors Open: 6:30pm

Cover Charge: $10

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BIOS:

Sprouted from a family of educators, international poet Samantha Thornhill performs her poetry on stages from South Africa to Hungary. Writing since age 8, Samantha went on to receive her bachelors in creative writing from Florida State University and her masters in poetry from the University of Virginia. Samantha has since built a life for herself in New York City, where she serves as writer in residence at the Bronx Academy of Letters and teaches poetry to actors in training at the Juilliard School. She is currently at work on her young adult novel Seventeen Seasons, to be published by Penguin/ Putnam. Her ode to the late folk legend Odetta is available from Scholastic as a picture book. Recently, Samantha was the beneficiary of a Jerome Foundation travel grant, which enabled her to spend three months in her homeland, Trinidad & Tobago. For more info, please visit http://www.samanthaspeaks.com./

Veronica Golos won the 16th annual Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize (Story Line Press) for her book, A Bell Buried Deep (to be re-issued by Red Hen Press), and is the author of Vocabulary of Silence (Red Hen Press, 2011). An award-winning curator and teacher for Poets & Writers, Poet’s House and 92nd St Y/Makor in New York City, Ms.Golos’ work has been published and anthologized nationally and internationally, and adapted for theatrical productions in New York City’s Theatre Row, and the Claremont Theological Seminary in California. Her poetry was the centerpiece of My Land is Me, a four-artist multimedia exhibit in Taos, NM that questioned the western view of the Veil. For more info, please visit http://veronicagolos.wordpress.com/

A "self-taught" guitar player, composer and troubadour of heartbreak ballads, folk songs, spirituals, soul-stirring blues and what she calls “Organic Moonshine Roots Music," Valerie June is poised to reach a wide audience as one of the stars of the ballyhooed new MTV web series “$5 Cover” which is written and directed by Craig Brewer, creator of the Oscar-winning movie: Hustle & Flow. Her alluringly haunting voice of distinction appeals to fans similar to those of Linda Thompson, Michelle Shocked, Jeff Tweedy, Sinead O’Connor, Jessie Mae Hemphill along with the music world’s most famous Bobs; Dylan and Marley. She pursued song-writing and performing at the age of 19, while a member of the husband-and-wife team, Bella Sun. Her relatively early marriage wasn’t a surprise, the oldest girl in a strict Christian family of five children, she was domestic as well as ambitious — she pretty much raised her siblings and, as Valerie says: “Granddad always feared for my hips because I always had a baby on ’em.” For more info on Ms. June, please visit http://valeriejune.com/



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This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.