Wordflight, the monthly poetry series, returns to the Crane Branch Buffalo and Erie County Library at and features two multi-talented performers, Alex Mead and Janna Willoughby. This series features local poets and slots for open readers (sign-up at 6:45). Writers from the community, whether novice, emerging, or established, are invited to participate. Light refreshments will be served after the reading.

Alex Mead is a local poet, rapper, author, illustrator, and musician. His poetry volume, Invisible Fire: The Poems of Alex Mead and Anna Walsh, from AmProSoft, was published in 2005. He has also written two science fiction novels, McEmpire and Smash Your TV. His autobiography How to Care About Humans is published online. He has also released an album of digital music, Ambient Light. He is a riveting and popular performer who has been the featured performer at reading series such as the Allen Street Hardware Cafe Spoken Arts. He has performed with his band "Blood Thirsty Vegans" and as "My Rap Name is Alex" at "Dance Alive" and other venues.

Janna Willoughby, has been writing poetry since she was 5 years old and was first published when she was 16. Since then she has had poems in Paperkut, Pulp Literary & Art Magazine, WWC Facebook, ISP: Best Poets of 2003, Theater of the Mind, and the anthology, Living Spiritually in a Consumer Society. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC, with a BA in Integrative Studies: Art & Business. She performs in poetry slams and was in the top 5 slam poets in Buffalo for two years running. She is an artist as well as a singer/songwriter who plays guitar and does political hiphop. A mesmerizing performer, Janna has been featured reader in both the Spoken Arts and the new/reN.E.W series, as well as many other venues. She is currently a co-editor of Earth's Daughters Magazine/ Collective, and has performed with them at the Screening Room, the Buffalo Small Press Bookfair, and Olean Public Library.

Earth's Daughters magazine presents Michael Hopkins and Martha Deed as part of the Earth's Daughters Gray Hair Reading Series.

Poet, educator, jazz critic, and social commentator for over 30 years, Michael F. Hopkins is the author of A Kind Of Twilight (Smiling Cat Publications) and the ongoing critical forum A Deeper Groove. He has written for such periodicals as The Black Scholar, Contact II, and the international jazz magazine Coda. Through UB's Dept. of African-American Studies, Hopkins instituted the first courses ever taught on the pan-ethnic fantasy ElfQuest, the Pulitzer prize-winning comic strip Doonesbury, and pioneering science fiction author Octavia E. Butler. View his literary works at www.humblevoice.com/towncry.

Photo: Michael F. Hopkins

The Buffalo State Rooftop Poetry Club presents a songwriting workshop with Lisa Forrest and Dennis Reed.

Photo by Lisa Forrest