Overview Portland Art Museum invites the community to join a Free First Thursday event, offering free admission to the museum for all, plus a Live Wire event as part of the Literary Arts Portland Book Festival. Visitors can take in the afternoon gallery pop-ups, the evening show, or both! Free First Thursday + Museum pop-ups4:30 – 6 p.m. —4:30-6:00pm — Free, pre-show, pop-up performances will take place throughout the Museum’s galleries.Performers are poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling...
Oregon Jewish Voices 2026 November 5, 2026 Admission: $10 general admission, $5 for members with code on back of membership card Location: OJMCHE Auditorium Share × " class="share-btn"> Share on Facebook &text=Oregon Jewish Voices 2026" class="share-btn"> Share on Twitter Email Thursday, November 5 | 7pm start time, doors open at 6:30pm Started in 1999 and organized by writer Willa Schneberg, this annual event features readings by prominent Oregon Jewish poets and writers. The writers in the 2026 program span a range of genres, including fiction, poetry, playwriting, and nonfiction. Each author will share selections from their work. About the Speakers Ayelet Amittay is a poet and psychiatric nurse practitioner in Eugene, Oregon. Her first book, The Eating Knife , is an extended Midrash on the Akedah—the binding of Isaac. It was published by Fernwood Press in 2025. Her chapbook, Therapy Room , won second place in the 2024 3-Day International Chapbook Contest. Ayelet’s poems appear in Gulf Coast , Michigan Quarterly Review , Rattle , Critica Press , Tupelo Quarterly , Pleiades , and others. She received fellowships from the Yiddish Book Center and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing . Find her at www.ayeletpoet.com or on Instagram @ayeletpoet. Rachel Attias is a writer, educator, and editor based in Portland. Her writing has appeared in n+1 , Porter House Review , X-R-A-Y, and more, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. She holds an MFA from Oregon State University, and teaches writing at Portland Community College and around the Pacific Northwest. She is also part of Art/Lab’s 2026 Fellowship Cohort, which empowers Portland-area Jewish artists and culture bearers. Her writing is concerned with present and ancestral relationships, our changing natural world, memory, time, and everyday absurdity. Find Rachel at www.rachelattias.com . Daniel Isaiah Elder Daniel Isaiah Elder writes fiction and nonfiction. He was awarded a 2026 Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize and received a Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Writer fellowship, as well as an Art/Lab fellowship for Jewish writers. He works as a bookseller at a small independent bookstore, and at Lidia Yuknavitch’s alternative workshop organization, Corporeal Writing. His essays and fiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Catapult, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Witch Craft Magazine, and many more. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his partner and their blended family
Told entirely by two performers, a poet and a musician, Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s An Iliad remixes Homer’s tale, bridging the ancient with the contemporary. In turns humorous and tender, violent and harrowing, An Iliad is a vital examination of the human compulsion towards war, a passionate interrogation of the toll war has on our humanity, and a testament to the power and potential of storytelling.
Told entirely by two performers, a poet and a musician, Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s An Iliad remixes Homer’s tale, bridging the ancient with the contemporary. In turns humorous and tender, violent and harrowing, An Iliad is a vital...
Live Wire joins forces with the Portland Art Museum for an afternoon of roving performances ahead of an evening recording of the program. The event coincides with PAM's monthly Free First Thursday and the Portland Book Festival's expanded...
Join us for a poetry reading from Householding with Tom Blood, Shannon Baird, and Brian Hebb. Tom Blood is the author of the sky position which was awarded the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Published the raccoon, dot dot, the act, if ever then...
Late-night series exploring modern, experimental, and avant-garde trends within contemporary classical music. Featuring spoken word performance by Hieu Minh Nguyen.
Join us for a reading and celebration of Paul Maziar’s Junebug. The evening with feature musical guests Kelli Schaefer and Drew Grow. When asked for eight words to describe Junebug, Maziar channeled Agent Cooper: “Everyday, once a day, give...
A gospel songplay · Written by Langston Hughes, directed by Jerry Foster, music directed by JerMichael Riley PhD, choreography by Kemba Shannon. Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity tells the story of the Nativity from an African-American perspective through a...
Join Paul Iarrobino from Our Bold Voices for a special open mic event on World AIDS Day. This powerful afternoon will include storytelling and poetry as we reflect on this year’s theme: Rethink. Rebuild. Rise. We will honor the lives and strength of those living with and affected by HIV. Together, we’ll create a space for joy and healing, celebrating our community and the journey we share.
We provide the mic, you bring the talent. Calling all poets, writers, actors, musicians and artists alike -- of all ages! Come share your talent(s)with a live audience. Are you a student in need of a live audience to rehearse your monologue or solo piece for an upcoming college audition or show? Are you a poet or writer in need of some feedback for that upcoming novel? Are you a musician wanting t