SoulFood CoffeeHouse

On the third Thursday of every month, SoulFood CoffeeHouse in Redmond, Washington, is home to SoulFood Poetry Night, an evening of engaged and engaging poetry. 

Curated by Michael Dylan Welch, SoulFood Poetry Night has been running monthly since July of 2006. Following the featured readers, we have a break to enjoy the bookstore, its art gallery, and especially its café, we have an open-mic reading where we invite you to share your poetry. Just sign up when you arrive and be prepared to read for about three or four minutes each (depending on the number of readers). And the occasional song is welcome, too.

Bruce Beasley is a professor of English at Western Washington University in Bellingham and the author of nine collections of poems. He’ll be reading from his new book, Prayershreds (Orison Books). His previous books have won the Colorado Prize for Poetry (selected by Charles Wright), the Ohio State University Press Award, and the Contemporary Poetry Series Award from the University of Georgia Press. His work appears widely in Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, and other journals. Visit https://brucebeasley.net/.

Katy E. Ellis is the author of the novel-length prose poem Home Water, Home Land (Tolsun Books) and three chapbooks, including Night Watch, winner of the 2017 Floating Bridge Press chapbook competition, Urban Animal Expeditions, and Gravity, a single poem that was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in many literary journals in the United States and Canada. She cofounded and cocurated the monthly WordsWest Literary Series in West Seattle from 2015 to 2019. Visit www.katyeellis.com.