Open mic poetry series hosted by Jennifer Maloney. The event takes place at Nox Cocktail Lounge.

This month's theme is Mental Health, and I'm so please to present two of the finest poets I know as featured readers! David Yockel, Jr. and house sugarpunk.

David Yockel, Jr. curates Just Poets monthly reading series, and is a poet, educator and audiophile living in downtown Rochester. He is a lecturer in the University Writing Program at  RIT where he teaches first-year composition and serves as Writing Across the Curriculum Faculty Fellow. David received his MA in Creative Writing from the College at Brockport in 2011 and has since had poems published in a number of journals across the country, including Common Ground Review and Trajectory. Most recently, his short animated poem "Appears to Be" was included in the Phaze 2 Gallery exhibit at Shepherd University in West Virginia.

house sugarpunk: poets, a dissociative system and a loving dysfunctional family all residing in one body. Concerned with the nature of spirit, body, family, punk rock (in)authenticity, chronic illness, social justice, queer-trans reality and the nature of identity, this little colony of writers share fragmented truths, confessions, and occasionally, dark comedy. Relative newcomers to the New York poetry scene, the system honed their craft at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where they obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Fiction, and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies in 2013. Upon graduation, their short stories "Bedbugs" and "Firebrand Survives the Rapture" were published in Fighting For an Audience: an Anthology.  Please come and support this new series! Bring a poem to share--there will be open mic slots available between the featured readers.

Nox supports this series by supplying this venue free of charge; please patronize our hosts, and remember, this is a "no donation required, no donation refused" event, with a tip jar SOLELY for paying our fine readers--please #PaythePoets!