Please join us on July 17, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. for our 19TH ANNIVERSARY SOULFOOD POETRY NIGHT reading featuring BAND OF POETS. Performing will be John Burgess, Anna Jenkins, Ted McMahon, Jed Myers, and Rosanne Olson — and YOU at our open-mic reading. Admission is FREE!
BAND OF POETS celebrates and explores the intersection of words and music. They’ll read poems over improvised music and sing both original and cover songs. Expect anything from blues to improvised jazz, from soundscapes to new ballads. They evoke poets from the Beats to the Confessionals, from Whitman to Yeats. Band of Poets features the music and poetry of John Burgess, Anna Jenkins, Ted McMahon, Jed Myers, and Rosanne Olson, sometimes joined in performance by other musicians, poets, songwriters, and sometimes even dancers. No two shows are alike except for their exuberance and love.
JOHN BURGESS grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and has lived on the Left Coast since 1984. His influences include 70s punk music, Montana bars, and Japanese haiku. He has six books of poetry from Ravenna Press, each with an increasing number of maps, graphs, and comics. Most recently, he’s been working on A History of Poetry Comics, and making DIY zines of his own poetry comics, which he gives away for free. More at punkpoet.net.
ANNA JENKINS is a music teacher, composer, arranger, and therapeutic musician. She leads the Eastside Harp Circle and performs with the harp trio, “Harps, Please!” and the Eastside Harp Ensemble. Anna enjoys adding a touch of harp to the spoken word with Band of Poets.
TED MCMAHON is a Seattle poet and percussionist. A long-time contributor to Easy Speak Seattle, he is happy to be a collaborator with Band of Poets.
JED MYERS has been immersed in poetry and music since his youth. His third and most recent full-length collection of poems is Learning to Hold (winner, Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award). Recent writing appears in Rattle, The Poetry Review, Rhino, Hole in the Head Review, Terrain.org, Solstice, Nimrod International Journal, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Myers lives in Seattle, where he participates in various musical ensembles and serves as editor for the journal Bracken.
ROSANNE OLSON has spent a lifetime in the arts: photographer, educator, author, and songwriter. In 2018 she released her first album, Love in Your Country. Listen to her songs at www.rosanneolsonmusic.com or on Spotify.
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