Buffalo State's Rooftop Poetry Club presents Geoffrey Gatza and a second reader TBA.

Geoffrey Gatza is the editor and Publisher of BlazeVOX [books] and the author of five books of poetry; Not So Fast Robespierre (Menendez Publishing) will be released in 2008. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY (1993) and Daemen College, Amherst, NY (2002), and served as a U.S. Marine in the first gulf war. He lives in Kenmore, NY with his girlfriend and two cats. In case of rain, event will be held in the International Students Reading Area, 3rd Floor SE Quadrant Butler Library.

Photo: Geoffrey Gatza

The Buffalo State Rooftop Poetry Club presents readings by Gabrielle Bouliane and Liz Mariani.

Bouliane is a twelve year veteran of the National Poetry Slam, founding their video production program and running the website livepoets.com in service to the slam community. As a writer and performer herself, she explores the more sarcastic side of dating, sex and relationships, getting things off her chest on stage that you aren’t supposed to talk about in public. As a result she has also been the seven-time host of the National Erotica showcase, as well as locally founding the Nickel City Poetry Slam. She believes in the slam as a flawed but uniquely American art form, and she believes in poetry as a way to get people deeply connected to themselves and each other.

Mariani is a moody, vibrant poet and spoken word curator in Allentown, Buffalo at Spoken Word Sundays at the Hardware. Liz feels blessed to live in such a spectacular city and describes Buffalo as a wise old woman; she speaks softly, slowly, with weight.

Photo: Gabrielle Bouliane

The Buffalo State Rooftop Poetry Club presents Forrest Roth and Jaye Bartell.

Roth's stories have appeared in various print and on-line journals, including NOON, Quick Fiction, Sleepingfish, Snow Monkey, Elimae, 5_Trope, Double Room, and Locus Novus. He is the author of a novella, Line and Pause (BlazeVOX, 2007), edits a Flash Fiction page for Artvoice, and curates the COMMUNIQUE reading series for the Just Buffalo Literary Center. He currently teaches English at Canisius College.

Bartell was born in Massachusetts, and has lived and worked in Asheville, NC, San Juan Island, WA, and lives currently in Buffalo, NY. Poetry has appeared in the Flim Forum Press Anthology, A Sing Economy, Capgun and Cutbank magazines, and Pig; Prose has appeared online at thisrecording.wordpress.com; and music is available under the name Oak Orchard Swamp.

The Buffalo State Rooftop Poetry Club presents Karen Sands-O'Connor. Karen Sands-O'Connor's poetry career began in fourth grade, when she wrote a now-buried book of poetry for her school's Young Authors program (on pink paper, no less!). Her first publication, however, came decades later with a birthday poem she wrote for a Bob Dylan fan and dear friend. She has been published in the British journal, Orbis, and in the Journal of Caribbean Literature, and has had poetry readings at the Burchfield-Penney in Buffalo and the Liverpool Poetry Cafe in the UK.