Interested in Reading?

Our goal with monthly SoulFood Poetry Night readings is to nurture a vibrant poetry community in the greater Redmond and Eastside area around Seattle. By featuring accomplished poets, we hope to inspire our community with variety, diversity, and quality. Starting in 2016, we switched from featuring mostly pairs of readers to featuring mostly groups and organizations, such as poetry presses or journals, writing groups, anthologies, or other groups, but around 2019 we returned to featuring mostly pairs of individual poets. If you’re interested in proposing a group or organization, or yourself as a reader, please send an email message to Michael Dylan Welch (WelchM@aol.com). Please describe your group or organization, and perhaps include brief bios and/or links to a selection of your group’s poetry online. You can also propose yourself or others as individual readers.

If you or your group or organization is selected to feature, we will need a short bio (typically 35 to 50 words, sometimes shorter) for each group reader, plus a description (50 or so words) of the group or organization, plus digital photos of each reader. For individuals we request a bio of 50 to 75 words and ask that you propose a coreader who has not read for us for at least a year (see past readings). We are not able to pay our featured readers, but you can sell copies of your books (the store doesn’t ask for a commission).

In the past, most of our readings were streamed live on the Internet, but since the pandemic we have not been able to resume that practice.

We hope to see you at one of our readings soon. Please come and join our thriving poetry community! Click here for directions or for information about our next reading.

Historical Note: From May of 2024 to May of 2025, SoulFood charged a $5 admission fee for poetry night. Featured readers were free. When just two featured readers were scheduled, they were each entitled to two free guests. Fortunately, with new store owners, the fee ended as of June 2025.