click on the logo to their website
Poetry Street is an open mic with featured poets, occurring 4pm-6pm (EST) on the last Saturday of each month, an ecumenical social justice ministry of reconciliation and healing, the “room without a roof, where every voice is heard
S P O T L I G H T
POETRY STREET

click on Screen for youtube video
Click on the Mike for 'open mic'
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In June 2020,
Chip Williford launched
POETRY STREET ON THE ROAD on Zoom,
in support of Black Lives Matter and
“Juneteenth.” In July 2020, he
launched the new website,
www.poetrystreetontheroad.com,
and a movement was born.
POETRY STREET ON THE ROAD started
back in 2014 as POETRY STREET,
a project originated by Susan Dingle,
poet, social worker and
community activist. Inspired by the
Nyorican Poets Café, Dingle,
envisioned POETRY STREET as a
truly open mic where every voice
is heard, and invited
Robert A. (Bubbie) Brown,
a poet, community leader and
member of the First Baptist Church
of Riverhead, to collaborate as
partner. Nancy Kouros, owner of
the Blue Duck Bakery Café, offered
a venue in downtown Riverhead.
The first reading, in June 2014,
commemorated “Juneteenth.” ,
POETRY STREET was held on the
fourth Sunday every month at
the Blue Duck Bakery Café until
June 2019, the “room without a
roof…where every voice is heard.”
In 2015, POETRY STREET went
ON THE ROAD throughout the
North Fork, performing at events and
protests. In 2017 Chip Williford,
poet and videographer, produced the
first season of
'POETRY STREET ON THE ROAD' on
YouTube, and became a partner
and co-host of POETRY STREET,
with Maggie Bloomfield as co-host.