Feeling in the Dark: Poetry Reading & Community Showcase

Iram Noor Asghar is reading from her collection Feeling in the Dark at Rose City Book Pub on Saturday, October 10. It's an open mic poetry reading and community showcase, so the night is built around a mix of featured readings and local voices taking the mic.

Asghar is the main feature, reading from Feeling in the Dark, and she's joined by guest poets Elena Sanchez, Juan Antonio Trujillo and Paola Santiago. The evening is billed as poetry and community exploring grief, love and impermanence—the kind of heavy, human territory that usually lands better when read aloud in a room than on a page. If you're into that side of the city's poetry scene, this is exactly the kind of night that draws it out.

Because it's an open mic, the bill doesn't stop with the featured readers. There's space for other poets to step up and share their own work, so the lineup grows as the night goes on. It's a community showcase in the literal sense: the featured reading sets the tone, and the open mic fills in the rest. Physical copies of Feeling in the Dark will be available to buy there, so you can take a copy home if the reading sticks with you.

It runs from 7 PM to 9 PM at Rose City Book Pub, 1329 NE Fremont St in Portland, and entry is free.