About

Poetry Hickory is a monthy reading series held the second Tuesday of each month from 7:00 – 8:30 P.M. at Taste Full Beans Coffee House (29 Second St. NW) in downtown Hickory, NC.  Each reading is preceded by Writers’ Night Out, beginning at 5:30 also at Taste Full Beans, coordinated by Scott Owens as NC Writers’ Network Regional Representative.  These meetings and readings are open to the public and free of charge.

The series was founded by Scott Owens in September 2007 and is sponsored by Taste Full Beans and Main Street Rag.  Each reading includes two featured writers followed by a 30-minute Open Mic. Open Mic participants must sign up by 7:00 and will be given 3 minutes for their reading. Readers are expected to be sensitive to the diverse nature of the Poetry Hickory audience.  Racist, sexist, homophobic, pornographic, or other hate-centered, derogatory content is inappropriate for this audience and will result in the reader being banned from future readings.

Upcoming readings will be posted on this website.  Ten-minute video samples of several of the readings are also available here.

Previous featured writers have included the following:

Tony Abbott, John Amen, Margaret Booth Baddour, Joseph Bathanti, Sandra Beasley Rand Brandes, Robert Lee Brewer, Ann Campanella, Jessie Carty, Bud Caywood, Ann Fox Chandonnet, Sara Claytor, DB Cox, Phebe Davidson, Jeff Davis, M. Scott Douglass, Linda Annas Ferguson, Keith Flynn, Brenda Graham, Alex Grant, Bill Griffin, Irene Blair Honeycutt, Debra Kaufman, Robert King, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Helen Losse, Al Maginnes, Joseph Mills, Carter Monroe, Lenard Moore, Ron Moran, Tim Peeler, John Picard, Ted Pope, Pat Riviere-Seel, Dannye Romine Powell, Adrian Rice, Jonathan K. Rice, Molly Rice, David Rigsbee, Ce Rosenow, Katherine Soniat, Mark Smith-Soto, Shari Smith, Stephen Smith, Chuck Sullivan, Rhett Iseman Trull.

For information on either Poetry Hickory or Writers’ Night Out, contact Scott Owens at asowens1@yahoo.com or 828-234-4266.