Poetry Happy Hour with Kirsten Casey

Thursday, March 20, 2025

5:00 - 6:00pm

Communal Cafe

233 Broad St

Nevada City, CA

Celebrating UNESCO World Poetry Day

Friday, March 21, 2025

12:00 - 4:00pm

The Book Seller

107 Mill St.

Grass Valley, CA

Every year World Poetry Day is celebrated around the globe in readings and in ceremonies honoring poets and inspiring writers, whether aspiring or well established. Come celebrate World Poetry Day as we kick off Arts, Culture & Creativity Month starting in April. Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea while writing or being inspired by prompts.

Join Nevada County poets throughout the day, as we explore this year’s theme, Poetry as a Bridge to Peace and Inclusion. Poems will be posted on a bulletin board and will be displayed at the Sierra Poetry Festival Main Stage event on April 12, 2025. 

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It contributes to peace and security by promoting international cooperation in education, sciences, culture, communication and information. UNESCO promotes knowledge sharing and the free flow of ideas to accelerate mutual understanding and a more perfect knowledge of each other's lives.

Third Annual Ekphrastic Fantastic

Art-Inspired Poetry

Friday, March 28, 2025

5:00 - 7:00pm

Artists Studio in the Foothills (ASiF)

940 Idaho Maryland Rd.

Grass Valley, CA

A celebration of live poetry in conversation with art created by ASiF’s Artists in Residence. ASiF's 3rd annual Ekphrastic Fantastic event is a collaboration with the Nevada County Arts Council. Its mission is to bring together—to celebrate and cross pollinate—two distinct and thriving communities of local visual artists and poets, followed by book sales and signing. Free and open to the public.

Donations gratefully accepted to support the ASiF Art Center.

Poetry Pub Crawl

Saturday, March 29, 2025

4:00 - 6:00pm

Brewhaus, Miners Foundry, Nevada City Winery, Golden Era, Szabo Winery, Grand Lounge at The National Exchange Hotel, Three Forks, The Fern, Deer Creek, and Stone House.

Festival Fundraiser! 

Grab a map and choose your own adventure. Readings and mini-workshops will be offered by some of Nevada County’s best and most beloved poets, at locations throughout downtown Nevada City. 

With performances and workshops hosted at 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, and 5:30, you might have a hard time choosing who you want to see. So get your friends together and join us for the first Nevada City Poets Pub Crawl.

This event is free, so we ask you grab a pint and a pretzel, a poetry themed cocktail, or a glass of wine, from the stops you choose and most importantly, have fun!

Passing of the Laurels

Saturday, March 29, 2025

6:30pm

Stone House

107 Sacramento St

Nevada City, CA

Passing of the Laurels

Following the Poets Pub Crawl join us at the Stone House for dinner and a poetry themed drink. In celebrating The Passing of the Laurels we are honoring Poet Laureate Emerita, Kirsten Casey, and welcoming our new Nevada County Poet Laureate, Karen Terrey. Both poets will read a selection of their work and speak to the importance of the role of Poet Laureate. Afterwards they will be joined on stage by poets from the Pub Crawl, reading from their collections, accompanied by DJ Brandon Greathouse. 

Poetry Writing Workshop

FOR TEENS

Led by Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

3:30 - 4:30pm

Truckee Library

10031 Levon Ave

Truckee, CA

The word inspiration comes from the Latin word inspirare, meaning “to breathe or blow into”. This could be why reading a beautiful poem or listening to a song can sometimes be breathtaking. In this fun workshop you will learn how to breathe the inspiration from other poets and musicians into your own new poems. Over time, poets have invented approaches to writing poems that are influenced or guided by other artists. Three forms in particular are: the Glosa, the Golden Shovel, and the Erasure poem.

Using your favorite lines and lyrics that move you, we will try these techniques to breathe inspiration into your own writing. You will leave this workshop with two or three new poems and lots of ideas and prompts. 

Bring your friends - no writing experience required!  You might even invent your own new form for a poem!

Five Nevada County Women Poets

Thursday, April 3, 2025

6:00 - 7:30pm

The Miners Foundry and Cultural Center

325 Spring St.

Nevada City, CA

In this, their 9th Sierra Poetry Festival pop-up event, five Nevada County Women read their poems.

Kirsten Casey

Judy Crowe

Molly Fisk

Ingrid Keriotis

Judie Rae

Poetry Writing Workshop II

POEMS OF HISTORY AND HOPE

Led by Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey.

Friday, April 4, 2025

10:30 - Noon

Truckee Library

10031 Levon Ave

Truckee, CA

Poems can uniquely capture the emotion of a moment in time from your own life. Including the social or historical with your personal experience within the poem can add depth and a current relevancy. What public events have influenced your own life? Do you want to write about an experience of a long ago public event, a social or political movement or a current event that is making history now?

Poems of history and hope will be our guides to find approaches to write about a moment within your own life and to explore how it ties in with historical happenings around you.

In this workshop we’ll look at a few insightful poems that integrate social experience of the moment with personal experience. With fun prompts you will write one or two new poems and leave with many more ideas and techniques to play with. 

No writing or poetry experience necessary! The approaches in this workshop are useful for fiction and memoir too. 

Music and Poetry with QUANTUM

Sunday, April 6, 2025

4:00pm

North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center

$10-20 donation at the door benefits the Schoolhouse Cultural Center

No one turned away for lack of funds.

Quantum is a musician, singer/songwriter, artist, and writer. He likes putting poems to music, and has done performances of poems by e.e. cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gary Snyder, and others.

Wild Writing Wednesday

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

4:00 - 5:30pm

Nevada City Picture Framing & Gallery

571 Searls Ave, Suite B

Nevada City, CA

Lead by Sands Hall, join community members in a lively and fun generative writing session where you will be guided from prompts inspired by the theme of the Sierra Poetry Festival. 

Open Mic Poetry Slam Lottery!

Thursday, April 10, 2025

5:00 - 7:00pm

The Iron Door at The Holbrooke

212 W Main St.

Grass Valley, CA

Hosted by Jori Phillips.

Readings begin at 5:45pm sharp. Arrive in time to put your name in the lottery tumbler. Starting at 5:45, we’ll draw the names of 20 poets, one-by-one. Your original poem should not exceed three minutes; please time yourself beforehand. 

Compete for the opportunity to read your poem on the Main Stage as part of Sierra Poetry Festival. Three finalists will be selected by our judges. Looking forward to this flash round of poetic voices!

Judged by Clay Stockton, Karen Terrey, and Kirsten Casey.

Sierra Poetry Festival Media Lounge

Friday, April 11, 2025

5:00 - 7:00pm

Nevada City Winery 

321 Spring St.

Nevada City, CA

Join us in welcoming our visiting poets and presenters, and celebrating our founding festival benefactors.

Each one will be interviewed, wine will flow thanks to our no-host bar, and the public is welcome as our media lounge is broadcast live!

April 12th  Center for the Arts  Sierra Poetry Festival

Poetry Happy Hour

WITH KIRSTEN CASEY

Thursday, April 17,  2025

5:00 - 6:00pm

Communal Cafe

233 Broad St

Nevada City, CA

Timeless Inspirations: Poetic Persian Music

REFLECTIONS IN ART - ART EXHIBIT, TALK AND, PERFORMANCE

Friday, April 18,  2025

5:30 - 7:30pm  [Talk and performance at 6pm]

Nevada City Winery

321 Spring St

Featuring internationally acclaimed Persian vocalist Marjan Vahdat. This event is a group art exhibit resulting from a collaboration between Marjan Vahdat’s profoundly sensitive poetry imbued Persian music, and the work of local and regional Artists.  

Come sip lovely wine while you view the music inspired artwork; then be suspended in timelessness and the pure sound of the heart’s landscape, with a performance by Marjan Vahdat. Her silken voice will stay with you forever.

 Marjan’s CDs will be available for sale.  

Open and free to the public. No-host bar.

Survival Is a Success of Sorts

With Doc Dachtler, Wang Ping, Molly Fisk, and Davis Reeves

Poetic Crossings 2025

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Doors at 6:00pm  |  Reading at 6:30pm

Tickets available through North Columbia Schoolhouse $15.00.

Tickets sales go to benefit The North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center

North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center

17894 Tyler Foote Rd 

Nevada City, CA

An evening of sorting through the papers, the past, the places and people who have helped to shape our community and those that continue to contribute through words, letters, and action. In honor and gratitude, in a time when poems—where art—is one of our greatest tools to hold together our social bonds, our shared humanity, our sanity.

If poets are the namers of things, as has been suggested, then this work of naming has become, over time, ever more complex. Only by looking back can we observe how well we have named our times, our lives in relation to culture, community, and our place. So, this is an opportunity to look back at our own work, and that of others who have done well in this naming. What was accurate and what has stuck? An opportunity to celebrate, to grieve, to feel together what has come and gone, and what remains.

With Doc Dachtler, Wang Ping, Molly Fisk, and Davis Reeves

Poetry in Parks

WITH KIRSTEN CASEY

Saturday, April 26, 2025

1:00 - 3:00pm

Empire Mine

10791 E Empire St

Grass Valley, CA

Join host Kirsten Casey, Poet Laureate Emerita of Nevada County, for our fourth annual Poetry in Parks event. Listen to poetry under the trees, on the grounds of the historic Empire Mine State Park, from 1:00 - 3:00 on Saturday, April 26th. High school students from SAEL will join local and visiting poets, as they reflect on the history of our community during National Poetry Month.

Festival Date: March 20, 2025 - April 26, 2025

Locations:  Various Towns in CA

Click here for more information