Bowery Poetry Club
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The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space. Located at Bowery and Bleecker Street in Lower Manhattan, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists.
The Bowery Poetry Club was founded in 2002 by Bob Holman, the owner of the building that houses the club. In a recent profile of Holman in The New Yorker, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., wrote “he has done more for poetry in the bars than anyone since Ferlinghetti,” hearkening back to the famed impresario of the Beats. Holman has been making a living as a poet and running readings for 25 years, first at the St. Mark’s Poetry then the Nuyorican Poets Cafe where he founded and MCed their infamous Poetry Slams from 1988-1996. He’s also published seven books, created Mouth Almighty, the spoken word division of Mercury Records, produced poetry shows for PBS and MTV, and toured the world of Poetry Festivals and Readings. Dubbed a member of the "Poetry Pantheon" by the New York Times Magazine and crowned "Ringmaster of the Spoken Word" (New York Daily News), "Poetry Czar" (Village Voice) and "Dean of the Scene" (Seventeen).
On a positive note, the coffee, muffins and sandwichs are great and are worth the trip there for take out.
Regular shows include:
- Amina & Amiri Baraka and Blue Ark
- James Blood Ulmer
- Anne Waldman & Jim Carroll
- Uncle Jimmy’s Dirty Basement
- The Taylor Mead Show, every Friday at 6:30
- Poetry + Karaoke = Fun, featuring Hal Sirowitz
- Ladies at the Mic
- Shaba Sher, Persian poetry & music
- Beatboxers Summit
- The Peoples Poetry Gathering
- Slam! Every Thursday with Urbana Three-time National Slam Champs
- Ed Sanders, John Giorno, Carl Hancock Rux, Toni Blackman, Tuli Kupferberg
- Rick Shapiro, the Lenny Bruce of Poetry
- Yusef Komunyakaa, Breyten Breytenbach, Jackson Mac Low
- The Segue Series, every Saturday at 4
- Praise Days: Bob Kaufman, June Jordan, Gregory Corso, Audre Lorde, Ted Joans, Dylan Thomas
- Emily Dickinson Marathon
- Bilingual Readings: The World of Poetry
- Eric Bogosian, Karen Finley, Danny Hoch, Sekou Sundiata, Sapphire
- Plus Poets’ Soapbox (speak your mind in poetry), Open Mics, performance workshops, International Poets, Spontaneity, and Simply GREAT coffee
- The O'Debra Twins' Show and Tell
