When the heat of deep summer starts to get to everyone's head, the only real solution is a cold drink and some poetry. Kramers Summer Poetry Reading, part of our seasonal series, can help with just that! We will be featuring several local authors, including Mary Koles, Alexa Patrick, and Dan Vera. Each poet will read from their original work for about 15 minutes.
The reading also features a short summer-themed writing contest, the winner of which will take home a $20 Kramers gift card! Join us and toast your sweaty drinks to the air conditioning and a well-placed line break!
Mary Emma Koles won the Gerald Stern Poetry Prize in 2009 and the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize in 2012. Her poems have been published in The Dirty Napkin, Mississippi Review, New Millennium Writings, St. Petersburg Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Her greatest joys are rap, jazz, olives, and overcoming ennui on the daily. She owns Academic Pathways, an educational company that electrifies learning experiences for all ages in the DMV and beyond.
Alexa Patrick (she/her) is a vocalist and poet from Connecticut. She is the author of Remedies for Disappearing (Haymarket Books 2023) and holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and more. In spring 2023, Alexa made her stage production debut as Un/Sung in the opera We Shall Not Be Moved, (dire. Bill T. Jones). You may find her work in publications including Adroit, CRWN Magazine, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic. Visit alexapatrick.com for more.
Dan Vera is a first-generation, borderlands born Queer-Tejano Latinx writer, editor, and literary historian of Cuban/Caribbean ancestry. The recipient of the Oscar Wilde Award for Poetry and the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, he’s the co-editor of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands and author of two books of poetry. His work is featured by the Poetry Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and in high school, college, and university curricula, as well as various journals, and anthologies. A CantoMundo and Macondo Writing Fellow, Vera has been a featured reader around the country, including the Dodge Poetry Festival, the Poetry Foundation, and New York City’s Poets House. He served on the board of AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and was long-time chair of Split This Rock Poetry. He's the co-curator of the literary website DC Writers Homes, featuring the homes of over 250 writers who've called DC home.