Ancient City Poets

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January Poetry Reading – Online

THEME: “New Year is Here” ​
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Ancient City Poets Michael Henry Lee and PAM Jam Coordinator Chris Bodor will co-host this month’s community open mic on-line event. Share two or three of your polished poems or bust out some fresh ink from your notebook during Saint Augustine, Florida’s longest running open mic poetry event. Invite a friend or two or three to view the livestream on FB Live to cheer you on. Love, or our aversion to it, is in the air and all are invited to write words to that theme. The writing prompt is just a suggestion, and you are free to follow it or not. What is important , is that we get to know you and your artistic words.

NOTE: At 3:00 pm EST on Sunday, JAN 31, the FB Live feed for this reading will appear on the following site:
https://www.facebook.com/ancientcitypoets

Poets and poetry fans have been gathering for free open mic poetry reading since August of 2009. A sign-up sheet will be available at 2:30 and the open mic will start at 3:00 pm.

If you would like to share a poem, please let us know through our website. We will email you the Zoom Meeting ID and any passcode that might be needed. We have space on the list for 15 poets at 5 minutes each. Readers will be called to the virtual podium in the order their names appear on the list.

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PAM Jam comes to Butterfield Garage

During the entire month of November the gallery will feature 17 poet/artist pairs from the inaugural PAM Jam 2020. A year ago Ancient City poets teamed up with artists from Butterfield Garage to work together and create art based on each others work. The resulting poems and works of art will be displayed together, complete with QR code access to multi media videos of the various collaborations put to music by local musicians.

For many of the participants, this cross disciplinary was a first. The “how” to approach the process was purposely undefined, encouraging each pair to explore uniquely, and has opened new creative pathways for many of the artists. Musicians were included at the end to explore introducing a third element, with the intention of having a PAM Jam live event to celebrate and present the creative results of all three.

Due to Covid concerns, the live performances and readings have been moved online. The poetry and art is on display at the gallery, and the three elements have been showcased in 18 unique videos that can be accessed with any smart phone in the gallery or on PAMJam’s website: https://pam-jam.com/st-augustine/staipamjam/

Ancient City Poets posted footage of the poets reading live during their virtual October poetry reading on the Ancient City Poets YouTube Channel. The October 2020 readings are the poems created for PAM Jam. The link to listen is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-q1EFSh27tyqmGpiSAu4Vw.

This unique exhibit will be on view the entire month of November from 11:00am – 5:00pm everyday at Butterfield Garage Gallery. Butterfield is located at 137 King Street, St. Augustine, Florida. They will be open for First Friday.

Featured Image:

Morning air
the opportunity to
let it sink in
—by Michael Henry Lee

image moon viewing by Nancy Hamlin-Vogler

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PAM JAM Preview 2020 Virtual Poetry Reading

Special PAM JAM Preview during the October Ancient City Poets open mic reading.

Invited poets will read the poems that they wrote from being paired with an artist from the Butterfield Gallery. Fine art created during the poet/artist collaboration will also be worked into this presentation.

What’s a PAM Jam?

Back in August of last year, The Butterfield and the Ancient City Poets partnered to form a project named PAM Jam – Poets, Artists, and Musicians Spreading Joy. The inspiration was a project that featured 9 poets collaborating with one artist: Anna Miller. The show was called “Refractions”, and it was on display from January 15 to March 15, 2019, at the St. Johns County Administrative Building Rotunda.

This year, 18 fine artists from the Butterfield Gallery were paired with a poet partner from Ancient City Poets. The deadline for the finished poem and artwork from each paired collaboration team was April 1st of this year – right in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak. PAM Jam became the perfect pandemic project. In isolation, writers and artists got to know each other through emails, text messages, zoom meetings, and late-night phone calls. Writers and artists bonded together, built new relationships with each other, and learned to ride out the new normal. When the poems and paintings were completed, musicians were brought in to add another layer to the collaboration process.

On October 25th, the Ancient City Poets will hold a poetry reading at 3 pm online through zoom featuring the 18 poets and their poems from the inaugural PAM Jam. The event will be streamed through FB Live to the group’s Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/ancientcitypoets

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