Join Eat My Words on April 20 at 7pm for readings from a trio of exceptionally talented, original, and engaging local poets. Readers will include:

Zoe Bird has served for eleven years as poet-in-residence with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, where she has worked with countless people to create original, collaborative poetry. She has performed with artists of all stripes, including Butoh dancers, ceramicists, and harmonium players, and performs as the Fur Stethoscope trio along with bassist Paul Brown and poet Lauren Camp. She co-organized and co-hosted monthly Open Poetry and Poets for Peace readings in Santa Fe, New Mexico for five and seven years before returning to her hometown of Minneapolis in 2010. Recent and forthcoming publications include Sin Fronteras, About Place Journal, and Main Street Rag.

Richard Broderick is the author of three collections of poetry and a collection of short fiction. He is a two-time winner of the Many Voices Project Competition sponsored by New Rivers Press, recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Award and a Minnesota Book Award. He has also been a finalist for the Robert Frost Foundation Award, and is a two- time nominee for the Pushcart Prize in poetry. His work has been widely anthologized, including in The Next Parish Over (New Rivers Press) and the definitive The Book of Irish-American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present published by University of Notre Dame Press.

Mike Finley, a/k/a Big Vanilla, has been performing for the Twin Cities scene for nearly 50 years. A recipient of the lifetime Kerouac Award, he has written over 200 books and published in places as diverse as Rolling Stone, Paris Review, and Billy Graham's Guideposts. His 1995 book Why Teams Don't Work was named "Best Business Book, The Americas." His hallmarks are powerful storytelling, a determination to connect with audiences, and a sense of fun. One critic wrote of Mike: "In no one else's work, except Vallejo's, do I sense such desire straining at the limits of words."