NIGHTJAR: Karen Kovacik

Doors at 6:30 pm, Reading at 7 pm Open mic prompt: Write a poem that explores what you’ve inherited, whether from your culture, history, religion, family, or other context. Read a poem or short piece that is 317 words maximum, and challenge yourself to share new work! — About Kovacik: Karen Kovacik is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Portable City (Hanging Loose, 2025). Also a translator of Polish poetry, she has brought into English Jacek Dehnel’s Aperture, a finalist for the 2019 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and she is one of three translators of Krystyna Dąbrowska’s Tideline, a finalist for the 2023 Derek Walcott Prize. The editor of Scattering the Dark, an anthology of Polish women poets, she has received many awards, including two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Fulbright Research Grant to Poland. From 2012-2014, she served as Indiana’s Poet Laureate. — NIGHTJAR creates an inclusive space for all by bringing together spoken-word performers and page-based poets writing in narrative, lyric, and experimental forms. Every third Wednesday, C.S. Carrier and Michelle Niemann host a reading and invite audience members to share their own poetic responses.