Feeling Burnt Out? Find a Literary Escape From New York

After spending all week and most of the weekend reading, analyzing, and writing about literature written before we were born, it sometimes feels like literature has lost its passion and is settling for a vivisectionist nostalgia. We all sometimes need to escape on the sly to a place where Butler no longer looms overhead and we’re free to enjoy letting words wash over us without worrying about memorizing them for the final. At times like these, the 1 train can save you. Downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn (as well as Harlem and Morningside Heights, for those with less spare time) host a handful of fresh literary events every week. They can’t get you a degree, but they offer something else that’s just as important.

Closest to the 1 train, the Strand has never hosted a reading that I haven’t enjoyed, although most of the featured writers read from their own books. Barnes & Noble in Union Square can bring in some interesting—if long-winded—big-gun speakers free of charge. A bit further out, the Bowery Poetry Club on the Bowery and First Street always has something going on, and sells delicious peanut butter cookies. Cornelia Street Café, at 29 Cornelia St. between West Fourth and Bleecker, hosts events most nights, but has gained a particularly strong reputation for its regular Friday night open mic slams, called “Son of a Pony!” The Poetry Project also hosts events almost every night at the beautifully ramshackle St. Mark’s Cathedral on 10th Street and Second Avenue. And the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe on Third Street between Avenues B and C has become something of a legend as the origin of the eponymous Latino literary movement in the late 1990s. If you’re willing to venture into Chinatown, the Teabag Poets’ Lounge at 30 Mott St. has a strong reputation—although I can’t verify it firsthand—for comic poetry and bubble tea, and hosts regular events on Wednesday and Friday nights. In Williamsburg, R.L.’s Lyric Lounge has an active scene of its own.

For spur-of-the-moment listeners and performers, or students with irregular schedules, the Internet is a great resource for finding literary events. Of the programs I’ve found, Marc Rubin’s digital New York City Poetry Calendar (poetz.com/calendar) is by far the most comprehensive and reliable. For individual events, I’d recommend checking out the Moth (themoth.org), a cozy storytelling slam that occurs twice a month at the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe and at the Bitter End, hosting Mainstage shows and grand slams at varying locations periodically. It must be said, though, that Moth performances are getting increasingly less intimate and more scripted-feeling. Our own Postscrypt Coffee House has wonderful readings, when it offers them, as does the Columbia New Poetry Club (columbia.edu/cu/newpoetry). And if you’re staying in the neighborhood, Amateur Night at the Apollo, held every Wednesday, is guaranteed to make language feel fresh again, although the $15 cover may feel steep. Get on the train one warm night and see for yourself!