The Poetry Open Mic at the Gallery Cabaret featuring Ignatius Valentine Aloysius hosted by Wes Heine

All styles welcome. Poets get five minute sets. We do two rounds as time allows. Usually Guitar Mike is there for optional background music any style, any mood (because he's brilliant). Rotating selection of art on the walls. And there's lots of beer as God intended.

Co-host bio:
Of South Asian descent, Ignatius Valentine Aloysius earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University, where he won the Distinguished Thesis Award for fiction and currently teaches. He is an interdisciplinary artist and the author of the literary novel Fishhead. Republic of Want (Tortoise Books), a collaborative poetry collection Salt Pruning (Hummingbird Poetry Press), co-written with David Allen Sullivan, recent poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, CA; and two forthcoming poetry collections Everything I Touch Is—& Isn’t—You (Roadside Press, Spring 2026) and Bone Dust Mother (Glass Lyre Press, Summer 2026). He is co-editor of The Overturning Anthology (Erratics Press) due in 2025. Ignatius serves as Chair of the Curatorial Council at Ragdale Foundation, a renowned artists residency in Lake Forest, IL, where he is also a Board of Trustees member. He lives in Evanston and is currently shopping a hybrid-speculative lyrical novel.
https://linktr.ee/ignatius.valentine.aloysius

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