October Canto-Kójo Open Mic

Bring a poem, a song, a short story, or anything else that's on your mind+heart for our monthly Canto-Kójo open mic and reading session, with this month's featured artist Meghan Malachi! Beginners and veterans alike are welcome and encouraged! Our featured reader for this month's gathering is Ashvini Kartik-Narayan.

In Yorùbá, the word “kojo” means “to gather”. In Spanish, “canto” means “to sing”. In our efforts to gather community together, we hope to make something new sing.

All are encouraged to bring anything they'd like to share within community, whether that be a poem, a song, a very short piece of fiction, or anything else that's on their heart! Spectators also more than welcome! :)

RSVPs are on a sliding scale pay-as-you-can basis, as we will be providing snacks! Suggested contribution is $8. Thank you!

Ashvini Kartik-Narayan is a student and writer living in Uptown. She has performed poetry throughout Chicago and New York since 2016. She hosts recurring poetry workshops and open mics at Nabala Cafe.

Yazud E. Brito-Milian (they/them) is a Chicane poet, impatient collagist, abolitionist, and eldest sister. Born in Winston-Salem, NC, and based in Chicago, IL, they are working on their first chapbook, crossfade, dedicated to their dad’s black and yellow KORG M50 and the musicians who raised them. Yazud has received fellowships from The Watering Hole, Periplus, and CantoMundo. Their work appears in Muzzle Magazine, Voicemail Poems, The Poetry Project, and Huizache Magazine. They are one of the founding members of Tanda Poetry Collective, a BIPOC-led poetry book club and workshop space for BIPOC poets. They also co-host a new reading series and open mic on the South Side called Canto-Kójo. In Spanish, canto means “to sing,” and in Yoruba, kójo means “to gather.” Yazud hopes to continue using poetry as a tool for gathering—to ensure our communities remain alive and celebrated."

I.S. Jones is an American/Nigerian poet, editor, essayist, and former music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Hedgebrook Callaloo, BOAAT Writer's Retreat, Brooklyn Poets, and Bread Loaf, where she was the 2023 Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholar in poetry. Jones co-edited The Young African Poets Anthology: The Fire That is Dreamed Of (Agbowó, 2020) and served as the inaugural nonfiction guest editor for Lolwe. She is an editor at 20:35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and has freelanced for Complex, Revolt TV, NBC News THINK,and elsewhere.