To attend on zoom individuals must register for tickets using the eventbrite here, and the event will livestream to the Day Eight facebook page.

The Poetry Rocks project includes ten video lessons connecting students and teachers to the art of slam poetry and the city of Washington, D.C. Each lesson features an area poet and a poem by Cabico responding to the poet, and more.

I Don’t Understand: a Poetry Rocks the District Collection is a book created to support student/teacher use of the video lessons. The book was designed by Studio 3440 and features cover art by Sasha Sinclair. Poets featured in the curriculum and book include Jon Sands, Dwayne Lawson-Brown, Kim Roberts, REIL, Kim B Miller, Esther Popel Shaw, Jeffrey Banks, Marlena Chertock, and Phyllis Wheatley. Student poets featured in the book include Lilou Culhane, Jasmine Kwok, and Emily Lippock. The Poetry Rocks project and I Don’t Understand collection were made possible by support from HumanitiesDC, and with additional support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Join us Sunday September 26th on zoom to hear poets featured in the collection and curriculum, including Regie Cabico, Marlena Chertock, REIL, and Dwayne Lawson-Brown, and student poets Lilou Culhane, Jasmine Kwok, and Emily Lippock. Following the poetry reading there will be a brief discussion of the POETRY ROCKS project. This event will be recorded.

REGIE CABICO is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and later taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. Television credits include two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, NPR’s Snap Judgement, and MTV’s Free Your Mind. He received the 2006 Writers for Writers award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital. He is the lead teaching artist for Poetry Out Loud and features in videos for the National Endowment for the Arts and Poetry Foundation. As a theater artist, he received three New York Innovative Theater Award nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind with a win for Best Performance Art Production. The Kenyon Review described him, the “Lady Gaga of Poetry” and he has been listed in BUST magazine’s 100 Men We Love. He has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and through Howard Zinn’s Portraits Project at NYU has performed with Stanley Tucci, Jesse Eisenberg & Lupe Fiasco. He is the publisher of Capturing Fire Press and resides in Washington, D.C.

Teachers and school leaders interested to access the Poetry Rocks video curriculum or to receive copies of the I Don’t Understand collection are asked to email: admin <at> DayEight.org.

In partnership with the Upper Georgia Avenue Main Street, Day Eight is producing an open mic and four back to back poetry readings to occur 7-11pm outdoors in front of the Shepherd Park / Juanita Thornton DC Public Library located at 7420 Georgia Avenue NW. Come out and enjoy the fun with friends and neighbors!

7:15-8:00 PM – Featuring Susan Meehan, Pacyinz Lyfoung, and Lori Tsang

Susan Meehan is the author of the books Goddesses Incognito, and Talking to the Night, and co-editor with Robert Bettmann of Falling Leaves: an Interfaith anthology on the topic of consolation and loss.

Pacyinz Lyfoung is a French-born, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet. Her poems have been published in journals including the Asian American Renaissance Journal, Paj Ntaub Voice, the Journal of Southeast Asian Education and the Stonecoast Review.

Lori Tsang’s poems have been published in dISorient, Controlled Burn, Amerasia Journal, and others, and her essays and reviews have been published in the MultiCultural Review, The Washington Post Book World, Women’s Review of Books, and Amerasia Journal.

8:00-8:45 PM – Featuring Ori Z Soltes, Jane Schapiro, and Luther Jett

Ori Z. Soltes teaches at Georgetown University and is author or editor of 24 scholarly books and several hundred articles, exhibition catalogues, and essays. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and four collections, including Then and Now: Love Lost and Sometimes Found.

Jane Schapiro is the author of three volumes of poetry: Tapping This Stone (Washington Writers’ Publishing House Award, 1995), Let The Wind Push Us Across (Antrim House 2017), and Warbler (Kelsay Books, 2020). She is also the author of the nonfiction book Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks (University of Wisconsin, 2003).

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. He is the author of three books of poetry: Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018) and Everyone Disappears (Kelsay Books, 2020).

8:45-9:15 PM – Poetry Open Mic with $100 cash prize awarded by judges from the Friends of the Shepherd Park Library: Beth Allaben, Naima Jefferson, and Mark Pattison.

9:15-10:00 PM – Featuring John Johnson, Jeffrey Banks, Monica Leak

John Johnson is the author of Love for Her (Day Eight, 2018.) A native Washingtonian and father of two, Johnson graduated from the University of the District of Columbia, and as a poet, playwright, director, and actor is dedicated to capturing the narratives of African Americans in Washington DC.

Jeffrey Banks, poetically known as ‘Big Homey’, has been featured in national media such as Essence Magazine, the CBS Early Show and Black Enterprise Magazine. He is a minister and Master of Divinity graduate of Howard University.

Monica Leak is the editor and a contributing writer of Faith of our Founders: 100 Daily Devotionals to Inspire, Encourage and Propel the Finer Woman. She works as a speech-language pathologist in southern Maryland, and a seminary librarian in northern Virginia.

10:00-10:45 PM – Featuring Regie Cabico, REIL, and Malik Thompson

Regie Cabico won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam, and later took top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. He directs Capturing Fire Spoken Word Arts in Washington, D.C., a queer poetry press and international poetry festival.

REIL is a native Washingtonian, and at age 16 was part of the inaugural Maryland slam poetry team that competed in New York City at Brave New Voices. A performing poet and poet educator, she is founder of REIL4Rudd, through which she volunteers to sustain the memory of disappeared child Relisha Rudd.

Malik Thompson, a native Washingtonian, is co-chair of OutWrite, an organization that advocates for inclusive literary programming that reflects and uplifts trans/queer literary communities. When they aren’t reading, writing, or partaking in imaginative reverie, they facilitate workshops on communication skills and applied nonviolence.

For more information about all of the Art All Night events produced by Upper Georgia Avenue Main Street visit their website here.

Do you love the arts? Do you love writing? This is for you!

Selected students will be paid to write articles for local publications about DC area arts and culture.

Fellows are expected to write an average of one story every 4-6 weeks. Stories will be assigned by partnering publication editors, and fellows will also be asked to ‘pitch’ story ideas. Partnering area publications include: Tagg Magazine, The DC Line, Washington Independent Review of Books, and DC Metro Theatre Arts.

Day Eight is currently seeking high school student applicants from across the DMV with preference given to DC high school students. Day Eight celebrates diversity and we strongly encourage students from all backgrounds to apply.

To apply, students are asked to provide a writing sample, and a cover letter answering the question: Why do I want to write local news stories? The writing sample can be any type of writing, and is not expected to be prior-published work.

Selected students will be paid $75-$150 per article, depending on length and complexity of assignment, with a $200 bonus for completion of four articles.

The High School fellowship is an expansion from Day Eight’s existing journalism programs, including our Arts Writing Fellowship (now entering its sixth year) and High School Writing Camp.

Students may be interested in Day Eight’s DC High School Writing Camp, a weeklong workshop providing writing and networking opportunities with area poets and journalists.

Older writers — college aged or older — may be interested in Day Eight’s Arts Writing Fellowship and annual Arts Journalism Conference.