April is National Poetry Month, and you can get in the spirit of verse this weekend as the Iowa Poetry Association takes over Mainframe Studios and Franklin Jr High Event Center for workshops, performances and competitions. No time to rhyme? Music, comedy, theater and more await your attention throughout the weekend. Top pick: xBk hosts the album release party for new work from Abbie & the Sawyers!
The Weekender is sponsored by:
Mainframe Studios
Poetry Palooza | Iowa Poetry Association Poetry Slam Finals
Apr 6 – Apr 8 –
Inspired by an educational and entertainment event of nearly 20 years ago, this creative experience – Poetry Palooza! – has been a long time in the making. Now, the time is right.
Since releasing his debut album, Born For This, earlier this year, Matthew has been busy selling out venues across the nation on his headline ‘Born For This’ Tour.
An artist with minimal online presence and who keeps himself to himself, Commodo is one of an increasingly rare few who make waves through the strength of their music alone.
Firat Erdim: Field Harp Soundings + Q & A with the Artist (Performance 1)
Apr 7 – 6:00pm
A performance-based commission by Des Moines-based artist Firat Erdim, in which volunteer performers will “play the weather” with instruments devised by Erdim.
Reinventing The Standards w/ Vocalist Aviana Gedler & Co.
Apr 7 – 7:00pm
Up-and-coming vocalist Aviana Gedler presents an evening full of new arrangements of some of her most beloved standards alongside an elite 6 piece band.
Join Capital City Pride at Platform for an evening celebrating love and honoring marriage equality and the anniversary of it’s establishment on April 3, 2009.
Writers who participated in Words Meet Art Part 1 will present their flash fiction, poems, creative nonfiction, a monologue, and/or perform music in response to the exhibition Harriet Bart.
Ryan Stier has been making music with his band, Extravision, for roughly a decade now. The five-person group often mixes ambient, psychedelic sounds with folk lyrics and instrumentation.
Extravision will appear at Mission Creek 2023 — Iowa City’s annual three-day music and literature festival — on Friday, marking the third time Extravision has played at the festival, having opened for Esmé Patterson in 2016 and S. Carey in 2018.
Camonghne Felix on calculating love and prose in her new book, ‘I want Black women to feel empowered by it’
by Sarah Elgatian, Apr 5
Reading Camonghne Felix’s 2023 memoir Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation is a gut punch over and over and over again. It’s one of those books I had to put down every couple of pages to catch my breath. Felix’s innate ability to create empathy in her readers is unparalleled. I want to emphasize this: one does not need to have shared Felix’s experiences for her work to impact them.
