Charlotte Lit’s Poetry Nightclub is new way to engage with the world’s oldest form of storytelling. Each quarter, Charlotte Lit will host a critically acclaimed poet for an evening performance that goes beyond traditional reading and book signing events.
Imagine soft lighting, café tables, live music, adult beverages, including a specialty cocktail. In addition to reading from their work, our poets—old stars and new!—will take us beyond the words on the page to share poems by poets who have shaped their work, show us how life has shaped their vocations and how being a poet has shaped their lives, and engage the audience in conversations about the ways poetry intersects with other aspects of culture.
Poetry Nightclub will be held at a great new venue, Starlight on 22nd in NoDa, from 6:30 – 9:00 pm. Tickets are $25, and your first drink is on us. (Under 21 tickets also available for $10.)
Upcoming

Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Date: Thursday, June 22, 2023
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University; a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer’s Award; a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, TX; the Bernard F. Conners Prize from The Paris Review; and a residency from the Civitella di Ranieri Foundation, among others. Calvocoressi’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled, The Year I Didn’t Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice.
Previous
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Date: Thursday, March 30, 2023
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of a book of nature essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, which was named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in non-fiction, and four award-winning poetry collections, most recently, Oceanic (2018). Awards for her writing include fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Council, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for poetry, National Endowment of the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and Best American Poetry. She is professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.


Erin Belieu
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Erin Belieu is the author of five poetry collections, all from Copper Canyon Press, including 2021’s Come-Hither Honeycomb. A Rona Jaffe Fellow and recent winner of the AWP George Garett prize, her poems have appeared in places such as The New Yorker, Poetry, Slate, Atlantic Monthly and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, and have been selected for multiple appearances in the Best American Poetry anthology series. Born and raised in Omaha, NE, Belieu now lives in Houston, where she teaches in the University of Houston’s MFA/Ph.D. creative writing program.
Chen Chen
Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Chen Chen’s second book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, is forthcoming from BOA Editions in September 2022. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He was the 2018-2022 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University and currently teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast.


Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, Inc.
Physical Address:
hygge coworking Belmont
933 Louise Ave Suite 101 Charlotte, NC 28204
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 18607
Charlotte, NC 28218
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Charlotte Lit is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, EIN 47-4988291. Contributions and memberships are tax deductible.