Why do we love April so much? The days are longer, the weather is finally warm, and it’s National Poetry Month! We are honoring the occasion with readings by four amazing poets. On April 27, Terence Degnan, Patricia Spears Jones, Kim Triedman, and Sweta Srivastava Vikram take the Sunday Salon stage. We are also lucky to have Vikas K. Menon as our musical guest for the evening. Come out and celebrate poetry with us! 7 PM at Jimmy’s No. 43.
Terence Degnan is a poet in Brooklyn. He sometimes edits books of poems for Sock Monkey Press. He released a solo spoken-word 
album with producer Kirk Salopek in 2006, and worked with DJ Triple B and his two brothers (also poets) Sean and Casey Degnan on a second poetry-based album in 2008. A second book of poems by Terence, entitled “Still Something Rattles,” will be released in 2014 by Sock Monkey Press. He currently hosts a storytelling series entitled “How to Build a Fire” at Open Source Gallery in Brooklyn on every last Thursday of the month. He lives in Park Slope with his wife and daughter.
Patricia Spears Jones is author of three poetry collections, most recently Painkiller (Tia Chucha Press), four chapbooks, the most recent, 
Living in the Love Economy (Overpass Books) and two plays commissioned by Mabou Mines, both premiered in New York City. She is currently putting together her New and Selected, forthcoming from White Pine Press in 2015. Poems are widely anthologized including Mujeres a los remos/Women rowing: An Anthology of Contemporary US Women Poet; Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary of African-American Poetry and Best American Poetry: 2000. She is contributing editor to BOMB Magazine and has served as Mentor for Emerge, Surface, Be, The Poetry Project’s Fellowship Program. She has received grants from the NEA and NYFA and awards from The NY Community Trust and the Foundation of Contemporary Art.
Kim Triedman’s poems have been published widely here and abroad. She has two new poetry collections out this past year — Hadestown 
(WordTech Communications) and Plum(b) (Main Street Rag Press), both finalists for national poetry book awards. Her first poetry collection–bathe in it or sleep–was named winner of the 2008 Main Street Rag Chapbook Competition. This past year, Triedman also released her debut novel, The Other Room, which was one of four finalists for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She’s also the editor of Poets for Haiti: An Anthology of Poetry and Art (Yileen Press), which benefited Partners in Health following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Sweta Srivastava Vikram (www.swetavikram.com) is an award-winning writer, Amazon bestselling author, novelist, poet, essayist, 
columnist, and educator. Born in India, Sweta spent her formative years between India, North Africa, and the United States. She is the author of five chapbooks of poetry, two collaborative collections of poetry, a novel, and a nonfiction book. She also has two upcoming book-length collections of poetry in 2015. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, literary journals, and online publications across nine countries in three continents. Sweta has won three Pushcart Prize nominations, Queens Council on the Arts Grant for BYOB Program, an International Poetry Award, Best of the Net Nomination, Nomination for Asian American Members’ Choice Awards & Independent Literary Awards, and writing fellowships. A graduate of Columbia University, she lives in New York City with her husband and teaches creative writing across the globe and gives talks on gender studies. You can follow her on Twitter (@ssvik) or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Words.By.Sweta).
MUSICAL GUEST:
Vikas K. Menon is a poet, playwright and songwriter. His poems have been featured in Indivisible: An Anthology of South Asian American Poetry andThe HarperCollins Book of English Poetry. His plays have received readings at or been produced by Ruffled Feathers Theater Company, Ingenue theater and the Classical Theatre of Harlem. He was a Keynote Speaker at Canto Mundo 2011 and is a board member of Kundiman, the first organization of its kind dedicated to supporting Asian-American poetry.
