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Special Events / May

04 8:30 $5 Exoterica concludes its 10th anniversary season, featuring Trinidadian poet Roger Bonair-Agard (Nuyorican "Fresh Poet", 1998, "Individual Slam Champion", National Poetry Slam, Chicago)

05 1 p.m. Free. A Celebration of New Jersey Poets: Gerald Stern, C.K. Williams, John Bargowski, Laura Boss, Constance Quarterman Bridges + Open. The Distinguished Poetry Series, Poetry Center, Passaic County Community College Hamilton Club Bldg, 32 Church Street, Paterson, NJ. Info: (973) 684.6555; TNAIK@pccc.cc.nj.us.

06 3 p.m. Free. Yusef Komunyakaa: Ringel Memorial Lecture. Teachers & Writers' Collaborative & Johns Hopkins University, Mudd Hall, Johns Hopkins University. Info: (212) 691.6590; www.twc.org.

07 7 p.m.Cave Canem Benefit Book Party and Reading. Cornelius Eady plus eleven Cave Canem artists at the Fourteenth (14th) Street Y. Proceeds go to fund the book prize. Judge: Marilyn Nelson.

11 10:30 p.m. If This is Just a Head Trip, How Come They Stole My Luggage? Staff from Poet to Poet and Medicinal Purposes Literary Review perform at St. Mark's Poetry Project on behalf of The Poetry Event Schedule.
Featured readers include Robert Dunn, Executive Editor (Playing in Traffic), Thomas Catterson, Managing Editor (This Pot Has Pepper); Leigh Harrison, Associate Editor (Our Harps Upon the Willows), Anthony Scarpantonio (Place Your Bets); Jacqueline Annette, and Evie Ivy, Consulting Editor (The First Woman Who Danced).

12 10 p.m. $10 5-State Slam-Off Finale at Nuyorican. Info: (718) 444-7464.

14 8 p.m. $12 The Poet's Theatre: Karl Kirchwey's Adaptation of Euripides's Alcestis: Performance in Verse at the 92nd St Y.

A story of a contemporary marriage and the cataclysmic events confronted by the generation of World War II. Director: Robert Scanlan

17 6:30 p.m. International Rivers Network Benefit Dinner at San Francisco's Maritime Museum in Aquatic Park, with guest poet Gary Snyder.

[The June issue of Big City Lit will carry a review of the event and more on the mission of the IRN. See www.irn.org. Ed.]

17 7 p.m. Ellen Bryant Voigt: "Lost & Found -- Speech, Music and Repetition in the Poems of Randall Jarrell." Poets House, 72 Spring St( 212) 431-7920 (www.poetshouse.org)

17 7 p.m. $8 A Tribute to Anne Sexton: Betsy Andrews, Marie Howe, Chris Stroffolino at Wollman Auditorium, Cooper Union, 51 Astor Place. (212) 254-9628

20 4 p.m. Free. The New Yorker Poetry Festival in Bryant Park
C.K. Williams, Jorie Graham, Mary Oliver, Donald Hall, others.

Pick up tickets at 3 p.m. from Festival Café, 14-20 West 40th. In case of rain, the reading will move indoors to the Celeste Bartos Forum in the library.

23 7:30 p.m. $15 Letters to a Young Poet. Poets House and Makor present an evening with Stanley Kunitz and Lucille Clifton, designed to inspire developing writers. At Makor. Seating limited. $15/$10 students. Box office: (212) 601-1000.