News

Soul Sounds: an open mic for nurturing arts, building community

I recently had the opportunity to attend Soul Sounds Open Mic where the featured artist was Danez Smith, who is a spoken word artist, slam poet, and author. It was an intimate crowd of about 40 people, with some attendees even dressed in Halloween costumes. Soul Sounds Open Mic takes place at Golden Thyme Cafe in St. Paul every week, and is community collaboration between the Saint Paul Almanac and Golden Thyme Coffee Café. The goal of Soul Sounds is to create a safe, multigenerational, and diverse space for people to create and share work while engaging in active dialogue that promotes connection and community.

Share the love on Give to the Max Day!

Please consider making a donation to the Saint Paul Almanac on Give to the Max Day, November 14. It’s a great way to celebrate the stories that express the heart and soul of our capital city.

November 21, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Joe the Great One

Joseph Terrance Adams was born one minute and two seconds after his deceased twin brother, Jeffrey Tyrone Adams, on November 19, 1983. God rest his brother’s soul. Joseph graduated from Washburn High School in 2002 and is married to Tequilla Adams. They have two “whatever they want” lifestyle-living daughters, Alana and Alayia. Joseph describes himself as “over-the-top, overprotective, and over this ‘whatever they want’ world my girls reside in. But they are my pride and joy, and I pride myself on being able to provide the best life possible for them. I just complain about it along the way. I’m also a ‘Rebel Music’-loving Bob Marley fan. And wish Dave Chappelle was my Black President.”

November 20, 2013: Andrea Jenkins presents “Intersectionality” at the Lowertown Reading Jam

The Saint Paul Almanac is pleased to announce the second in its 2013–2014 season of acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams, which celebrate the rich literary history of Minnesota’s capital city and the widely popular genre of spoken word. The “Intersectionality” Lowertown Reading Jam is hosted by Andrea Jenkins, and features emcee Robert Karimi and performances by Andrea Jenkins, JP Arcani, Tracine Asberry, Nimo H. Farah, and a special guest performance by Neo-Soul singer Liz Lassiter. Cross-Culture, Cross-Issue, Cross-Gender, Cross-Border, and Cross-Genre—Intersectionality seeks to identify areas where we—as humans, activists, lovers, and creators—have similar goals, ideas, and places where we meet. Hear stories of passion and of progress, of struggle and of loss. Meet us on the corner of Equity and Truth-telling!

November 14, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Kayla Steward

Kayla Steward, 19, graduated from Saint Paul Central High School, where she started writing poetry in the sixth grade and started slamming when she was sixteen. Kayla has won two local slams and was selected through the (K.)N.E.W. MN Youth Poetry Slam Series to be a part of the MN Brave New Voices team. She is currently enrolled at Saint Paul Technical College.

Kung Fu Zombies Vs. Cannibals is Monstrously Good!

We made our way cautiously to The Southern Theatre on October 13th. The street was teeming with pale and bloodied creatures loping around with cigarettes dangling from black lips, raising plastic cups of sour beer to the autumn night sky. The perfect setting for the world premiere of a Mu Performing Arts’ production of Kung Fu Zombies vs. Cannibals. The play is a dream, channeled and embroidered into a rich crazy quilt adventure by playwright Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, director Randy Reyes and a a talented cast and crew.

Videos from the 2014 Saint Paul Almanac Literary Festival

To celebrate the launch of the 2014 Saint Paul Almanac, Cracked Walnut, with sponsorship from the Saint Paul Almanac, put together 25 daily readings from September 18th to October 12th, 2013. Each reading featured an average of five writers and poets who were published in the Saint Paul Almanac, and took place in a different location around the city to enable more people to attend from our neighborhoods and introduce our regulars to new watering holes. Most of the writers who took part are published in the 2014 edition of the award-winning Saint Paul Almanac. Cracked Walnut’s Satish Jayaraj also invited previous Saint Paul Almanac contributors and other writers to take part in the Saint Paul Literary Festival. Many thanks from the Almanac to Satish for his amazing work in putting together 25 readings in 25 days!

November 7, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Meta Def with writing workshop

Meta Def is a twenty-six-year-old Saint Paul artist whose love for the art of the written word and various genres of music have added inspiration and emotion to his poetry and songwriting. His pieces, as he likes to call them, are his puzzles—pictures created to enlighten and entertain you. Rhythm is part of Meta Def’s soul, and his background in dancing (Popping/Boogaloo) has carried over to his writing, his style and cadences turning silence into music. This poet/emcee is versatile, incorporating his lifestyle of being a father, a carpenter, and a cook into his art—dreaming his painting and then painting his dream…one word at a time.

October 31, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Danez Smith

Danez Smith is a proud Cave Canem Fellow, two-time Pushcart Nominee, Best New Poets Nominee, survivor and avid twerker from Saint Paul, MN. He is the author of “hands on ya knees”, a chapbook published by Penmanship Books. His full-length collection, ‘[insert] Boy, will be published in 2014 by Yes Yes Books. His recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Gertrude, Devil’s Lake, PANK, The Cortland Review, Four Way Review, Anti-, and elsewhere. Danez came into writing through poetry slams, and placed 6th in the world at the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam and is the 2013 Rustbelt Midwest Regional Slam Champion. He is an assistant editor for Muzzle Magazine. He thinks you look good today, now werk!

October 24, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with deM atlaS

Saint Paul musician, Joshua Turner a.k.a. deM atlaS, first began his journey as a frontman of an alt-rock band called The Argonauts. The experience was essential in helping to propel him into different textures of music ranging from folk to hip hop. Moved by art, spirituality & friendship, deM atlaS conveys through his music the duality between man & god, ignorance & brilliance, enlightenment & what is dim.

October 23, 2013: Ellena Schoop presents “NU GRIOT’s Gumbo Revolution” at the Lowertown Reading Jam

The Saint Paul Almanac is pleased to announce the first in its 2013–2014 season of acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams, which celebrate the rich literary history of Minnesota’s capital city and the widely-popular genre of Spoken Word. Meet writers from the Givens Foundation for African American Literature’s Black Writers Collaborative Retreat Program—activists and community artist—as they share their fierce, unapologetic, bold, spicy and healing works. Stirring DNA threads plucked from the bayous of America, Haiti, Nigeria, Brazil, North Minneapolis, and around the globe, into a seasoned and savory word soup, sprinkled with sound and movement.