Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna welcome poets Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna for March’s First Friday Poetry Night!

Note: This reading originally featured Carey Taylor and Gina Hietpas, but they were unable to attend due to illness. We wish them a speedy recovery!

First Friday Poetry Night! is a poetry series featuring an everchanging slate of talented local poets hosted by Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna. Catch us each First Friday at 7pm in the heart of VDA’s Art Walk. Drop by early to browse the books, soak in the art, and pick up some delicious treats upstairs at Short & Sweet before the show.

Christopher Luna is a poet, editor, writing coach and teacher who served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Clark County from 2013-2017. Luna has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and is the co-founder, with Toni Lumbrazo Luna, of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing service and small press for Northwest writers. He and Morgan Paige co-host the LGBTQ+ friendly, all ages and uncensored Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in Vancouver, WA, founded by Christopher in 2004. Christopher Luna’s books include Voracity (Lightship Press, 2022), Exchanging Wisdom: A Guide for Parents of the Autonomous (with his son Angelo Luna, The Poetry Box, 2021), Message from the Vessel in a Dream (Flowstone Press, 2018), Brutal Glints of Moonlight, and The Flame Is Ours: The Letters of Stan Brakhage and Michael McClure 1961-1978.

Toni Lumbrazo Luna is a poet, editor, visual artist and the author of three poetry books: Driven By Hope (Printed Matter Vancouver, 2019) Jesus Is A Gas, and Wind Wing. She is the co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, a small press which also provides editing and writing coaching services to new and emerging writers. Although originally from central New York, she’s made the Pacific Northwest her home for more than three decades.

Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna welcome poets Scot Siegel and Jessica Morey-Collins for February’s First Friday Poetry Night!

First Friday Poetry Night! is a poetry series featuring an ever changing slate of talented local poets hosted by Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna. Catch us each First Friday at 7pm in the heart of VDA’s Art Walk. Drop by early to browse the books, soak in the art, and pick up some delicious treats upstairs at Short & Sweet before the show.

Scot Siegel is a city planner and author of four full-length books of poetry, most recently, Tender Currencies, winner of the 2024 Sally Albiso Award from Concrete Wolf-MoonPath Press, and The Constellation of Extinct Stars and Other Poems (Salmon Poetry, 2016). He has received fellowship residencies through Oregon State University and Playa at Summer Lake, and his poems appear in Nimrod, Terrain, High Desert Journal, and San Pedro River Review, among others. www.scotsiegel.com

Jessica Morey-Collins is a poet and land use planner. She is the author of the chapbook We Were More than Kindling (Black Lawrence Press, 2023). Jessica’s poems can be found in publications such as Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, Cotton Xenomorph, Maudlin House, Hobart, Tinderbox, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. Jessica was awarded an MFA in poetry at the University of New Orleans.

Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna welcome poet Erin Aurelia for January’s First Friday Poetry Night!

First Friday Poetry Night! is a poetry series featuring an everchanging slate of talented local poets hosted by Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna. Catch us each First Friday at 7pm in the heart of VDA’s Art Walk. Drop by early to browse the books, soak in the art, and pick up some delicious treats upstairs at Short & Sweet before the show.

Erin Aurelia writes poetry like a surgeon, a spelunker, an exorcist, and an astronaut: she cuts out tumors, traverses the subterranean, faces down demons, and wanders the cosmos. She edits nonfiction books by day as the owner of Sunshine Editorial Services & Book Coaching and writes and performs poetry by night. She is the author of Bone & Stars: A Constellation of Poems of Healing and Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse, in which she writes on the themes of trauma recovery, reclamation of self, and the unflinching embrace of powerful emotions. Erin is also the author of The Torch of Brighid: Flametending for Transformation, and her writing has been featured in two anthologies by Goddess Ink: Brigit: Sun of Womanhood, and Stepping into Ourselves: An Anthology of Priestesses, and in an anthology by Moon Books titled Paganism 101: An Introduction to Paganism by 101 Pagans. She served as the Poetry Managing Editor for the Spring 2021 edition of VoiceCatcher, an online women’s literary journal featuring short stories, poetry, and art by women of the Pacific Northwest. Erin is the mother of two grown sons and lives in Vancouver, Washington, where she is known for her lyrical, dynamic performances in shows and open mics, in which she is frequently accompanied by her favorite local musicians. Find her online at www.sunshneeditorialservices.com/erin-aurelia-poet, and follow her poetry on Facebook and Instagram at erinaureliapoetry.

Bone & Stars: A Constellation of Poems of Healing and Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse is a constellation of poems that forms the shape of one woman’s transformation from suffering emotional abuse and being rendered silent to finding liberation and reclaiming her voice. Each of these poems reveals a visceral determination to truly live, not just as the walking dead of someone numb with denial, but as someone who is their whole and defiantly shining self. Together, this composition of poems takes the reader through the poet’s journey of escaping an abusive marriage, reconciling what it means to endure an abuse that does not leave marks, healing the damage she endured, and recovering her lost voice to rise like a phoenix, fierce and unapologetic. This poetry collection is for those who have endured, are enduring, or wonder whether they are experiencing an emotionally abusive relationship, as we do not always recognize what we are experiencing when there is no blood to show us, so we need words to serve as that mirror instead. This book is a confirmation that all kinds of abuse cuts, wounds, and kills the spirit, as it is intended to; that enduring it is not our fault; and that we can liberate and recover ourselves and our voices to live as our true selves, shining and whole, as the generative and creative Sun of our own world, rather than as a moon that can only revolve around and reflect light for others.

Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna welcome hip hop emcee and spoken word artist Mic Crenshaw for December’s First Friday Poetry Night!

First Friday Poetry Night! is a poetry series featuring an everchanging slate of talented local poets hosted by Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna. Catch us each First Friday at 7pm in the heart of VDA’s Art Walk. Drop by early to browse the books, soak in the art, and pick up some delicious treats upstairs at Short & Sweet before the show.

Mic Crenshaw was born in Chicago, raised between there and Minneapolis, and currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Crenshaw is an independent Hip Hop artist, respected emcee, poet, educator, media producer and activist. Crenshaw is the Lead U.S. Organizer for the African HipHop Caravan and uses Cultural Activism as a means to develop international solidarity related to Human Rights and Justice through Hip Hop and Popular Education. In his teenage years, Crenshaw was a founding member of the Minneapolis Baldies and Anti Racist Action, both youth movements that actively confronted white supremacist gangs that were a growing part of the hard-core music scene. Mic eventually moved to Portland, where he quickly became one of the most respected artists in the Northwest. His community efforts have had both local and international impact.

In addition to his highly-acclaimed work in spoken word and Hip Hop, Mic co-founded the lifestyle brand GlobalFam and is the Executive Director of Education WithOut Borders 501c3 (https://www.ewobglobal.net/). Together Global Fam and EWOB helped launch a project to create and maintain a computer center for disadvantaged youth in Burundi, Central Africa. Over 400 people have received free training, and it is now expanding, generating revenue and creating jobs. Education WithOut Borders (EWOB) supports education, music and art initiatives in Portland, Tanzania and beyond, and serves as an umbrella for the local Books For Prisoners chapter and GlobalFam itself. Mic Crenshaw is a co-producer, co-director and one third of the cast of Crenshaw, Shabazz, and the Homie, Tom. Crenshaw is a co-producer of the It Did Happen Here Podcast and co-editor of the book, It Did Happen Here, An Anti Fascist Peoples' History.

Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna welcome poets Willa Schneberg and Brian Rohr for November’s First Friday Poetry Night! 

First Friday Poetry Night! is a poetry series featuring an ever changing slate of talented local poets hosted by Birdhouse Books and Christopher Luna. Catch us each First Friday at 7pm in the heart of VDA’s Art Walk. Drop by early to browse the books, soak in the art, and pick up some delicious treats upstairs at Short & Sweet before the show. 

Willa Schneberg is a poet, ceramic sculptor, and curator. The Naked Room, her sixth poetry collection, is a true synthesis of her life as a psychotherapist, and her life as a poet. Among her honors are the Oregon Book Award in Poetry, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Award, Second Place in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Kathmandu, Nepal and Glasgow, Scotland, and poems on the Writer’s Almanac. Her poetry has been translated into Hebrew, Arabic, Nepali and Korean. Willa was chosen by the Oregon Poet Laureate Selection Committee to be the 2022 Oregon Poet Laureate. However, because of Covid’s persistence a late decision was made to give the then Poet Laureate a second two-year term. In 2024, she presented at the Skagit River Poetry Festival in La Conner, WA. willaschneberg.org

Brian Rohr is a poet and performative storyteller residing in the Pacific Northwest. His work has been featured in the Jewish Literary Journal, The Word Faire, Blink Ink, and his essay, “On Being a Story-Carrier’’ was published in the two-volume book set about Jewish Storytelling, P’ri Etz Yitzhak, Fruit of Yitzhak’s Tree. He is the founder and director of “The Stafford Challenge,” an international poetry project inspiring over one thousand participants to write a poem every day for a year, influenced by the legendary poet William Stafford. As a storyteller and performative poet, Rohr has taught and performed at major conferences, high schools, universities, synagogues, libraries, and solo concerts. His debut book, Shaken to my Bones: A Poetic Midrash on the Torah, was published by Ben Yehuda Press as part of their Jewish Poetry Project series. He is a proud father and husband and loves green and herbal teas. https://brianrohr.com

Visit the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education on October 30 for Oregon Jewish Voices, an annual event organized by Willa Schenberg that features readings by prominent Oregon Jewish poets and writers. This year, the annual series celebrates a quarter-century of showcasing Oregon Jewish Writers! To purchase tickets, please visit:

https://www.ojmche.org/events/oregon-jewish-voices-2024/