Los Portenos Set for OSF's Hip-Hop Poetry Open Mic, 5/5

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) will host its next Hip-Hop Poetry Open Mic night May 5, el 5 de mayo, with featured poets Los Porteños. The Hip-Hop Poetry Open Mic event is free and open to the public and will take place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Black Swan on the OSF campus (15 S. Pioneer St., Ashland, OR 97520). Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.; space is limited.

In addition to opening the stage for the community to share their talents via all styles of poetry, music, dance, and theatre, each Hip-Hop Poetry Open Mic night highlights a different featured artist: the Q Brothers and Samiya Bashir headlined previous open mics this season.

Los Porteños is a group of Latino writers dedicated to raising their voices in the Portland community and to raising awareness of their diverse languages, canons, stories, and cultures. Representing Los Porteños on May 5 will be poet-dramatist Cindy Williams Gutiérrez; trilingual Mixtec poet, socio-linguist, researcher, and community educator Octaviano Merecías-Cuevas; and musician/singer-songwriter Joaquín López.

These events are open to the community and provide an opportunity for anyone to work on original material in front of live and deeply supportive audiences. OSF has been producing poetry slams and open mics since 2007.

More information about the open mic events is available on the OSF website here and here, and on the event's Facebook invite: May 5.