Calendar
THE FAMILY BAND PRESENTS
Readers:
Vanessa Veselka
Leni Zumas
Paul Susi
Musicians:
Andres Avila JR
Marcus Gibbon
THE FAMILY BAND
Workshop : Writing for Musicians
Writing for Musicians
This is a workshop for musicians who want to explore or develop their writing. Our focus will be on exploring the sonic nature of narrative voice, particularly through sentence cadence, language intensity and mood, pace, and structure. The point of this class is to generate new work through experimentation and having some gritty fun. Our time together will be a mix of mini craft lectures, discussion, writing prompts, and experience with homework assignments. While this workshop is designed for musicians, all artists are welcome, including those whose primary artform is writing.
Cost: $400
Available Spots: 20
Duration: Runs 4 weeks - May 19th through June 9th.
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30-8:30pm.
Location: Third Floor, Classroom. **Please note: There is no elevator.
While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits in this case.
Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.
Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a union organizer, a cab driver, and a union organizer.
Translation Tuesday at Mother Foucault's
Translation Tuesday at Mother Foucault's
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
7:00 p.m.
Translation Tuesday double feature with Jeremy Klemin reading translations of fiction and non-fiction by Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes, and Jen Mendez reading excerpts from their translation of German author Hans Peter Richter's YA historical novel. The reading will be followed by a short Q&A.
Refreshments will be provided!
Jeremy Klemin’s writing and literary translations appear in AGNI, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. His work has received support from the Fulbright Program, Disquiet International, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Oregon State University, and was named a 2026 Literary Arts Oregon Literary Fellow to support his in-progress essay collection about skateboarding, disability, and public space.
António Lobo Antunes, who has been called “one of Portugal’s preeminent writers” by The New York Times, was born in Lisbon in 1942. The son of a physician, he too became a doctor and then spent four years in the Portuguese army during the Angolan War. His book on that war, South of Nowhere, was internationally praised and followed by other widely translated and much-honored novels, including Act of the Damned, Explanation of the Birds, and The Natural Order of Things. He passed away in March 2026.
Jen Mendez is a German to English translator with a focus on literary translation. Originally from Seattle, they now reside in the Portland area, where they graduated with a BA in German Language and Literature from Portland State University. At the beginning of 2026, Jen stepped into the position of Vice President of the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (NOTIS), a regional chapter of the American Translators Association, and they frequently commute to Seattle to attend events with the organization’s NW Literary Translation Division. Jen is currently hard at work on a secret translation project that is set to be released in 2027.
Hans Peter Richter is an award-winning German author and academic from Cologne. Having come of age during WWII, Richter served as a lieutenant between 1942 and 1945, where his experiences inspired the trilogy of semi-autobiographical young adult novels for which he is best known: Friedrich, I Was There, and The Time of the Young Soldiers. The book Friedrich was awarded the prize for best young adult novel from the Sebaldus-Verlag in 1961. More than just an author, Richter studied psychology and sociology after his time in the war, and from 1973 on, he taught scientific methodology and sociology at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.
Workshop : Writing for Musicians
Writing for Musicians
This is a workshop for musicians who want to explore or develop their writing. Our focus will be on exploring the sonic nature of narrative voice, particularly through sentence cadence, language intensity and mood, pace, and structure. The point of this class is to generate new work through experimentation and having some gritty fun. Our time together will be a mix of mini craft lectures, discussion, writing prompts, and experience with homework assignments. While this workshop is designed for musicians, all artists are welcome, including those whose primary artform is writing.
Cost: $400
Available Spots: 20
Duration: Runs 4 weeks - May 19th through June 9th.
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30-8:30pm.
Location: Third Floor, Classroom. **Please note: There is no elevator.
While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits in this case.
Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.
Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a union organizer, a cab driver, and a union organizer.
Howard A. Rodman in conversation with Shawn Levy
Howard A. Rodman is the author of the novels Destiny Express and The Great Eastern. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Black Clock, and elsewhere. As a screenwriter his films include Joe Gould’s Secret; August with Josh Hartnett, Rip Torn, and David Bowie; and Savage Grace with Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne.
On television, he’s written for Fallen Angels and staffed on HBO Max’s The Idol. He’s a vice president of the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a past president of the Writers Guild of America West. Rodman is one of seventeen members of the Screenwriters Hall of Fame, and was knighted by the Republic of France as an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
As an academic, Rodman is professor and former chair of the division of screenwriting at USC; as a journalist, he’s published hundreds of articles beginning with his tenure as editor-in-chief of the Cornell Daily Sun. In 2011 Rodman organized the nationwide Fantômas centennial, and remains on the steering committee of NOIRCON. Those who lived through the post-punk era in lower Manhattan may have seen him play guitar with the bands Arsenal and MADE IN USA. A proud son of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Rodman currently lives in Los Angeles.
About Destiny Express:
Hailed as “caviar for the art-film buff” by Kirkus Reviews, the novel Destiny Express captures the glamour and the terror of an era, dramatizing the perilous moment when art, politics, and destiny converged on the tracks out of Berlin.
Berlin, the last day of February, 1933. The Reichstag lies in smoldering ruins, a new world about to spring from its ashes. And now for German filmmakers the choices are stark: stay and collaborate with a government that believes in cinema’s power to shape reality, or leave everything behind. Destiny Express is the story of Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, husband and wife, director and screenwriter—together, they made some of the greatest films of all time: M., Metropolis, Doctor Mabuse. As each day is torn from the calendar they watch as one by one Bertolt Brecht, Max Ophuls, Billy Wilder, take the next train out. Destiny Express follows Lang, von Harbou, and a host of real and fictional others––novelist-turned-minister-of-culture Joseph Goebbels, American café Surrealist Sam Harrison, Mercedes racing champ Otto Merz, film star Rudolf Klein-Rogge, a pair of not-so-secret police—as their paths converge, intertwine, and separate across the grid of Berlin, from the artificial daylight of the UFA soundstage to the artificial night of Berlin's most exclusive and decadent nightclubs.
Harsh lights, long shadows: the perfect setting for a deeply researched, deftly imagined tale, as one character puts it, of “crime, gambling, cocaine, jazz, stock exchange maneuvers, smuggling, hypnosis, counterfeiting, violence, Expressionism.” Destiny Express is the story of a marriage at the end of its passion, at the edge of history—all at the end of an era when film was to mean more than it ever would again.
About The Great Eastern:
From the shipyards of London to the ports of New York, from the undersea abyss to the halls of empire, The Great Eastern is a sweeping tale of invention, rebellion, and the war between creation and destruction.
A vast iron ship. Two legendary captains. A battle for the soul of an age.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the world stood on the brink of transformation. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the audacious engineer, dares to build the largest vessel ever conceived—the Great Eastern, a ship so immense it might stitch continents together with telegraphic wire. But beneath the waves lurks Captain Nemo, haunted genius of the submarine Nautilus, sworn enemy of empire and progress alike. When Nemo discovers Brunel’s plans, he vows to destroy both the ship and the world it represents.
Into this collision of titans steps another ghost of literature and legend: Captain Ahab, dragged from his watery grave, driven by obsession and vengeance, and drawn inexorably into the struggle between Brunel’s vision and Nemo’s rage.
At once a thrilling sea adventure and a subversive reimagining of classic myth, Howard A. Rodman’s audacious novel resurrects larger-than-life characters to tell a story that is as strange and wondrous as the century that gave birth to them. As Ricky Jay put it, “The Great Eastern is a nook of confabulations, real and imagined. Surprises on every page. A splendid and notable achievement.”
Howard A. Rodman will be in conversation with Shawn Levy.
Shawn Levy is the author of a dozen books, including the bestsellers The Castle on Sunset, Paul Newman: A Life, and Rat Pack Confidential and the prize-winning Dolce Vita Confidential. The former film critic for The Oregonian and KGW-TV, he lives and works and raises heck in Portland, Oregon.
Nazis at the Watercooler: War Criminals in Postwar German Government Agencies
Mother Foucault's Bookshop is pleased to welcome Terrence C. Petty and Jacob Boas for a reading and conversation on Wednesday, May 28 at 6:30 PM.
Germany has long been praised for the way it has confronted the Nazi past. But the accolades are only partly deserved, as meticulously documented by Portland author Terrence Petty in his book Nazis at the Watercooler: War Criminals in Postwar German Government Agencies.
Petty exposes a truth that German and American officials kept buried well into the 21st century: after West Germany’s creation in 1949, thousands of ex‑Nazis were hired into government jobs — including men involved in mass murder, in drafting antisemitic laws, in persecuting Hitler’s opponents, and in other depravities.
Petty documents how former Nazis who had established an early foothold in postwar government agencies helped each other get government work by writing letters of recommendation called Persilscheine. These “Persil Certificates,” named after a popular detergent, made an ex-Nazi’s recorded past just as clean as fresh laundry, Petty writes. Ex-Nazis were given preference for government jobs even over victims of Nazi policies and anti-Hitler resisters. They swapped Nazi uniforms for suits, Hitler salutes for handshakes.
Very few of these civil servants were ever investigated for potential war crimes, Petty shows. They worked until retirement, collecting generous government pensions, and many received plaques thanking them for their public service.
Based on six years of research, including Petty’s examination of declassified CIA and German government files, Nazis at the Watercooler reveals the depth and breadth of this long‑hidden injustice — and the reckoning Germany delayed for decades.
"A sharp-eyed look at a troubling past that still reverberates in modern Germany."—Kirkus Reviews"Nazis at the Watercooler has both intellectual and emotional resonance and stands as a meaningful contribution to the expanding body of scholarship on the enduring legacies of the Third Reich.”—Mikkel Dack, H-Diplo
Terrence C. Petty
Terrence C. Petty is a writer and retired journalist. He worked for the Associated Press for thirty-five years. Based in Bonn, Germany, from 1987 to 1997, he covered German and European affairs, the pro-democracy movement that toppled the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, neo-Nazi violence, and the fiftieth-anniversary ceremonies at Dachau, Buchenwald, and other former concentration camps. From 1999 to 2017 he managed the AP’s news operation in Oregon. He is also the author of Enemy of the People: The Munich Post and the Journalists Who Opposed Hitler. Petty, his wife Christina, their son Tristan, and two cats — Atticus and Helen — make their home in Northeast Portland, where they've lived for 26 years. A ninth-generation Vermonter, Petty has a bachelor of arts in history from the University of Vermont. He worked as a photographer, reporter and editor for newspapers in Vermont and upstate New York before joining The AP.
Jacob Boas was born in Transit Camp Westerbork (1943), the concentration camp in northeastern Holland from which the bulk of Dutch Jewry was sent to the killing centers in the East. Liberated in 1945, Boas grew up in Amsterdam and Montreal before moving on to California, where he earned a Ph.D. in history. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Patricia. His books include Boulevard des Misères: The Story of Transit Camp Westerbork (1985); We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust (1995); Mr. Holocaust (I Presume) (2005); Writers' Block: The Paris Antifascist Congress of 1935 (2016); Until Further Notice ... Theresienstadt on My Mind (2024), and Burden of Proof: Fragments of a Surviving Remnant (2026).
www.jacobboas.com
Workshop : Writing for Musicians
Writing for Musicians
This is a workshop for musicians who want to explore or develop their writing. Our focus will be on exploring the sonic nature of narrative voice, particularly through sentence cadence, language intensity and mood, pace, and structure. The point of this class is to generate new work through experimentation and having some gritty fun. Our time together will be a mix of mini craft lectures, discussion, writing prompts, and experience with homework assignments. While this workshop is designed for musicians, all artists are welcome, including those whose primary artform is writing.
Cost: $400
Available Spots: 20
Duration: Runs 4 weeks - May 19th through June 9th.
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30-8:30pm.
Location: Third Floor, Classroom. **Please note: There is no elevator.
While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits in this case.
Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.
Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a union organizer, a cab driver, and a union organizer.
🎾 Portland Tennis Courterly: Big Issue Release Party
Portland Tennis Courterly: Big Issue Release Party
https://tenniscourterly.com/
Saturday, June 6, 2026
7:00 PM 9:00 PM
Workshop : Writing for Musicians
Writing for Musicians
This is a workshop for musicians who want to explore or develop their writing. Our focus will be on exploring the sonic nature of narrative voice, particularly through sentence cadence, language intensity and mood, pace, and structure. The point of this class is to generate new work through experimentation and having some gritty fun. Our time together will be a mix of mini craft lectures, discussion, writing prompts, and experience with homework assignments. While this workshop is designed for musicians, all artists are welcome, including those whose primary artform is writing.
Cost: $400
Available Spots: 20
Duration: Runs 4 weeks - May 19th through June 9th.
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30-8:30pm.
Location: Third Floor, Classroom. **Please note: There is no elevator.
While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits in this case.
Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.
Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a union organizer, a cab driver, and a union organizer.
BOOK LAUNCH: Between Two Worlds: My Fifty Years in the Gurdjieff Work by James Opie
Between Two Worlds: My Fifty Years in the Gurdjieff Work James Opie | Foreword by Jeff Zaleski,
editor/publisher of Parabola 2007–2025
James Opie is known internationally as an expert on Oriental rugs, having written two books on the subject. His latest book departs from that topic, as he shares his entire life story in a memoir including episodes of youthful right-wing politics and racism, LSD experiences, resistance to the draft and Vietnam, and eventually the discovery of the teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff.
Along the way, this book recalls many experiences with major leaders of the Work that other literature has not reported, including remarks from John Pentland, Jane Heap (quoted by A. L. Staveley and Michael Currer-Briggs), Paul Reynard, and Jeanne de Salzmann. In relating to Madame de Salzmann, Jim began an encounter with her in Afghanistan unsure of his ability to formulate a "real question."
Her response revealed that his question was real enough, and even life-changing for him.
An online review observes: "In the end, this memoir-with-Gurdjieff reveals how inner efforts and fortuitous help incrementally make a man more mature and serious, though still remaining a beginner."
Civil Rights and Structural Attacks: Conversations with Jesse Strauss and Walter Riley
Join us to celebrate the launch of Civil Rights and Structural Attacks: Conversations with Walter Riley (Legacy Left / AK Press) with Jesse Strauss and Walter Riley in person.
Eighty years of lessons from the Black freedom struggle, labor movements, and internationalism.
This text is a multi-generational conversation between legendary Civil Rights organizer Walter Riley and longtime friend and Oakland organizer, Jesse Strauss. Together, they reflect on the importance of political action as the primary venue for learning and reflection. Walter Riley has a never-ending commitment to building a better world and he'll challenge readers to avoid the paralysis of analysis that slows movements down and to avoid getting caught in the missives of ego. Includes a foreword by Walter Riley's son, Boots Riley.
Jesse Strauss is an anti-imperialist and abolitionist cultural worker, community organizer, musician, and journalist born and raised in Oakland and Berkeley (unceded Ohlone/Chochenyo land). He is an anti-zionist descendent of Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide and was raised by parents engaged in radical queer healthcare and immigration asylum access work in the Bay Area. As a journalist, Jesse has a long working relationship with KPFA Radio, where he co-created the first-ever daily abolitionist radio show, Law & Disorder. He was a producer for Al Jazeera during the so-called "Arab Spring" and "Occupy" movements.
Walter Riley grew up as a civil rights activist in the Jim Crow South, chaired Durham, North Carolina's Young Adult NAACP, organized voter registration, sit-ins, job campaigns, and was a Field Secretary for CORE in the Southeast Region. He became a San Francisco State University activist for ethnic studies, and was a member of the Black Student Union and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Riley has worked as a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer since the 1980s. He is a loving father and grandfather.
BOOK LAUNCH : The Return of the 90s A Cultural History of the Present
BOOK LAUNCH: THE RETURN OF THE '90s
Wednesday, June 24 · 6:30 PM
Join us for the launch of The Return of the '90s: A Cultural History of the Present, edited by Madeline Lane-McKinley and Sean O'Brien.
This anthology dives into the contemporary fascination with the '90s. Plotting a playful course between sociology and cultural studies on the one hand, and giddy nostalgia on the other, the book charts decisive developments of the decade to fully apprehend its resonances today. Covering everything from 'girl power,' Star Trek and hip-hop, to queer cinema, anarchist counterculture and the erotic thriller, The Return of the '90s excavates key moments in '90s culture and uncovers its multiple reckonings in the present.
Madeline Lane-McKinley is a writer, editor, and cultural critic based in Portland, Oregon. Her books include Comedy Against Work: Utopian Longing in Dystopian Times, Solidarity with Children: An Essay Against Adult Supremacy, and Fag/Hag. She is also an editor for Blind Field: A Journal of Cultural Inquiry, a contributor to the Museum of Capitalism.
Palligraphy - the magic of end-of-life storytelling
Palligraphy - the magic of end-of-life storytelling
Sabrina Görlitz is a writer, hospice companion and palliative care lecturer from Hamburg, Germany.
She has invented "palligraphy", a short biography written at the end of life that captures the most important stages and formative memories of palliative care patients - a wonderful opportunity to securely record personal thoughts about life and death for family and friends.
Introducing her special approach based on Joseph Campbell's "the hero's journey" to the US for the first time, Sabrina will tell us more about the palligraphy process and share some very moving patient stories with us. They illustrate how the power of story can bring peace, healing and relief - even in the midst of utter heartbreak.
BOOK LAUNCH & READING : "Of Women" by Naoko Fujimoto with guest Charity E. Yoro
Of Women is a collection of translations of Japanese waka-poems from the seventh century to the twelfth century, featuring twenty female poets from this period, when Japanese women’s literature flourished. This book includes poems by famous writers from the era, such as Sei Shonagon (The Pillow Book) and Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji), and introduces some lesser-known female poets as well.
Waka compacts much information in a short form: words with double meanings, unfamiliar phrases, habits foreign to non-Japanese speakers, and hidden historical backgrounds. Direct translations would fail to capture the author’s full intent, so Of Women takes several approaches to capture the original sensory images, including text collage and haibun, as well as short essays that provide historical context and introduce the author before each waka.
Naoko’s work has already garnered impressive praise from established voices:
Of women gathers the poems of twenty Japanese women, many unnamed, from the 7th to 12th centuries, who wove longing, politics, beauty, and defiance into the compact form of waka. Fujimoto makes brilliant use of a “thick” approach, contextualizing her elegant translations with haibun-style reflections and visual art that both honor and explode the forms of the originals. In these pages, forgotten voices are reclaimed and reimagined, speaking with clarity and grace to our time.
–Geoffrey Brock
Of Women: 20 Japanese Female Poets / 20 Waka Poems translated by Naoko Fujimoto is an astonishing collection that steals us into the most intimate chambers of the heart, its diamond-like facets illuminated by women poets of the Heian era, each as brilliant and original as Fujimoto’s remarkable renderings. Her haibun approach carefully nestles these Waka poems in striking historical and social contexts while providing both visual and phonetic interpretations that reveal not only the breath of each poem but the forbidden heat of each poet’s afterlight with sensorial pleasure. These poems transcend what one might know of translation, operating as layered maps through emotionally fraught labyrinths that swell with color and surprise, breathless when whispering: “So show me / your tears, / your crimson / forlorn.” Humid with longing or haunted by desires smoldering in the thick of personal and political entanglements, Fujimoto parts the clouds of anonymity so that each poet emerges majestic and full like the moon, gifting us monuments of spiritual fortitude and literary mastery that accompany us in the heavens through the long and pulsing night.
—Monica Ong
Here’s more information about the translator and her achievements:
Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan. She is a poet and translator. Her poetry collections are "We Face The Tremendous Meat On The Teppan", winner of C&R Press Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Award by C&R Press (2022), "Where I Was Born", winner of the editor's choice by Willow Books (2019), "Glyph:Graphic Poetry=Trans. Sensory" by Tupelo Press (2021), and four chapbooks.
She is a RHINO associate & translation editor and Tupelo Quarterly translation editor. She is a Bread Loaf Translation full scholarship recipient and the 2023 Visiting Teaching Artist at the Poetry Foundation. Her first translation chapbook is available from Toad Press in the fall of 2024.
Charity E. Yoro (she/her) is a poet whose writing has appeared on The Rumpus, poets.org, Tupelo Press Quarterly, West Trestle Review, PRISM International, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere, and has received Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology nominations. Her debut poetry collection ten-cent flower & other territories (First Matter Press) was named the 2025 Oregon Book Award winner for the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Born, raised, and educated on the east side of O‘ahu, she currently lives west of Denver with her wild, loving family.
Monthly Café Littéraire — French Conversation Classes “The Art of Argumentation à la Française”
This winter and spring, L’École Buissonnière invites you to a monthly Café Littéraire, a French conversation class rooted in literature, seasonal culture, and thoughtful exchange.
Inspired by French cafés as places of ideas, debate, and imagination, these gatherings offer a slow, intimate approach to the French language. Each 90-minute session opens a thematic doorway through short literary texts, guided conversation, and gentle creative practices.
The focus is not performance or fluency at all costs, but presence, curiosity, and pleasure in thinking together.
Each month highlights a seasonal cultural moment in France, including traditions that shape language and collective imagination.
MAY 3rd | The Art of Argumentation à la Française
L’art de l’argumentation à la française
Seasonal focus: La Fête du Travail — le 1er mai & le muguet
From 10:30 to 12 pm (90 minutes)
📍 Practical Information
When: First Sunday of each month, February–May
From 10:30 to 12pm (90 minutes)
Where: Mother Foucault’s Bookshop
Group size: Limited to 10 participants
Pricing: Full bundle: $90
→ Includes all 4 sessions + a convivial Garden Party (a French-style apéro) celebrating French culture at the end of the cycleSingle session: $20
Drop-in: $25
POSTAL SOCIAL 💌
Write letters and postcards while drinking tea and also somehow socializing.
We’ll provide pens, typewriters, stationary, envelopes…bring yourself, a friend, your favorite quill pen if that’s your thing…and drop by between 2-4 pm
CONCERT: Low Tide Ritual, Furnace, Club Head
An evening of alt / rock / emo - Low Tide Ritual, Furnace, Club Head at Mother Foucault's
Wednesday, Apr 29th
Donation - $10 (cash / venmo at doors)
RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors
Doors @ 6:30 pm
Music at 7 pm
is a Portland-based alternative rock band blending the emotional urgency of emo with the angular precision of post-punk and math-rock influences. Their sound pairs tightly wound guitar work and driving rhythms with atmospheric textures and introspective, haunting lyricism. Balancing intensity with restraint, the band crafts songs that build tension and release in equal measure.
Furnace is a 3 piece indie hardcore band from Portland, Oregon formed in 2020.
Drawing inspiration from bands like Title Fight, Tigers Jaw, The Menzingers, and Jawbreaker, Furnace fuses indie music with their hardcore roots. With lyrics about grief, love, pain, and loss, their music is best described as "sad songs for retired hardcore kids".
club head is a trio from Portland, OR building new nostalgia from the wreckage of rock, psychedelia, post-punk, and folk, only to tear it all down in the length of a pop song. DC DuBois, Brad Larson, and Jacob Cline create heartache, sleazy guitar, pounding grooves, and melodic swirls. it's quiet until it's not. Follow the crow.
Concert : Star Family Singers, Kitchen Congregation
Star Family Singers, Kitchen Congregation
Join us for an evening of indie /alt singer songwriters.
Donation - $10 (cash / venmo at doors)
RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors
Doors @ 6:30 pm
Music at 7 pm
715 SE Grand
Kitchen Congregation (solo project of Hannah Morton) crawls under your skin and performs in your heart. She writes sincerely from memory and experience using vivid, surreal, dreamlike imagery. She gently sweeps us from the tender to the epic. Every song contrasting, and complimenting the wide array of complicated feelings we all share. There is an obvious attempt at honest self expression, and innovation within her chosen discipline. Her dedication to her practice is apparent in her confident poise. Kitchen Congregation is an artist that makes those intangible ubiquitous feelings tangible with great effect.
Star Family Singers
The Star Family Singers are a songwriting duo who write music to explore the mystical powers of love and friendship. Always a real world venture, they live in a 2003 Toyota Highlander and tour the DIY circuit, eating gas station hot dogs, exploring their craft and pursuing the effervescent mystery of music itself!
International Day of the Book at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop!
Mother Foucault's Bookshop is bringing International Day of the Book to Portland.
International Day of the Book is an annual event organized by UNESCO to promote reading and publishing. It has its roots in the Catalonian celebration of St. George's Day, or the Day of Books and Roses, during which lovers exchange books and roses as tokens of affection.
A celebration of literature, love, and Spanish and Catalan language and culture, the event will also support local nonprofit Street Books, a mobile library that provides community, resources, and advocacy for people living outside or at the margins in Portland.
12 pm — Open to All
The event is free and open to the public. The Bookshop will have books and roses—as well as other flowers—for sale. 10% of their proceeds will go to Street Books, who will join the celebration by providing services outside the shop.
7 pm — Evening Program
The nonprofit l'école buissonnière will present an evening program inside Mother Foucault's Bookshop inspired by the traditional celebration of St. George's Day in Catalonia. Readings of Catalan and Spanish-language literature will accompany music and a version of jocs florals (floral games, a Catalonian literary competition similar to an open mic). Refreshments will also be served.
The evening's readings will be organized by two Spanish Language Scholars, Andreu Borrego Asensi and Angeles Bellitti.
““It is a pleasure to celebrate this day with Mother Foucault’s Bookshop, who also maintains the hope that things can be done well despite the constant onslaught; they also see in books the gathering point of their community. Even though Spain and the rest of the world enjoy Book Day, in Sant Jordi something extraordinary happens: the festivity of the book but also of love. To unite both concepts is not a coincidence: annotations, doodles, recommendations, underlining, presents... all manifestations where the traces of a social space struck by literature are observed… There is something extraordinary in a population that dedicates one day to books and its literature.””
BOOK LAUNCH Mary Walling Blackburn : Cream Psychosis
Please join us on Wednesday, April 22, at 6 p.m. for Mary Walling Blackburn's book launch - Cream Psychosis (2026), published by Sternberg Press.
The lumpen and the miscreant walk a long, long way together into a bar. That bar is a landmass, is an empire, is an institution, is a painter, is insistent laughter through death. Deep gallows (sometimes humor) built for survival. The lumpen are kin to that famous glom of the proletariat. The miscreant treads earth in overlapping circles.
This book of essays, written by the artist Mary Walling Blackburn between the 201 0s and the present, moves with near-psychedelic precision across American time and its surrounding spaces. It begins near the annals of the Arkansas Lunatic Asylum, March 1883. Conspiring sugar planters, descendants of missionaries, overthrow indigenous Hawaii in 1895. A child learns how to split screens: hardcore film, documentary, destruction, and queer care in 1970s Times Square and in SROs in 1980s Salt Lake City. In 2020, protestors meet BORTAC-trained soldiers under skies choked with noxious propellants.
Facing a spiraling empire, Blackburn insists on showing volumes of teeming, vibrant, life. The essays and works collected here are movies of America in parallax view.
Mary Walling Blackburn was born in Orange, California. Artist and writer Walling Blackburn’s work engages a wide spectrum of materials that probe and intensify the historic, ecological, and class-born brutalities of North American life. She is the author of Quaestiones Perversas (2017) co-written with Beatriz E. Balanta.
David Hedges Book LaunchCapillary Action: Verse in a Light Vein
Not every laugh is a belly laugh. There are chuckles and giggles as well as guffaws. But one thing is certain in this troubled world: Laughter beats the pants off gloom and doom. As poet David Hedges, a master rib-tickler, informs the reader in his title poem: “Gravity is for the grave.”
In the late 1940s, Hedges spent Saturday afternoons in the confines of Portland's Blue Mouse Theatre, soaking up the slapstick antics of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy — and the ribald banter of W.C. Fields and Mae West. He and older brother Joe staged comic backyard theatricals. He went on to edit the Beaver dam, the Oregon State College humor magazine of the mid-1950s, and later, pen a humor column for a small daily newspaper.
There's something here for everyone. Chuckles and giggles, to be sure, and maybe even a guffaw. And — on the cover and scattered throughout the book — hilarious illustrations by Portland’s inimitable Jim Agpalza!
As a bonus, a subset of the indie rock band Hedgefire will play at both ends of the reading.
Praise for David Hedges from the late X.J. Kennedy
X.J. Kennedy, author of nine collections of verse, received the Poets’ Prize, the Robert Frost medal from the Poetry Society of America, and a prize for light verse from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Cover blurb for A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to a Geology Degree (Finishing Line Press, 2011):
“Here’s a heartening, hilarious, and hugely enjoyable saga drawn from the experience of dropping out of college into poetry. In New York’s teeming Village of the late fifties, our protagonist revels in a world bequeathed him by the magnificent drunken poet Dylan Thomas. Imagine! — poems that keep you fastened to your chair, expectantly turning the pages! I’m a Hedges fan for life.”
Cover blurb for Prospects of Life After Birth: Memoir in Poetry & Prose (Road’s End Press, 2019):
“David Hedges has given us a major work of literature — an account of his early life, in vivid, masterfully crafted verse. Characters are drawn memorably. Readers will find Prospects of Life After Birth a startling mirror of their own growing up, and a rare view of growing up given by the incisive mind of a first-rate writer.”
Excerpt from a profile of David Hedges by X.J. Kennedy in the Winter-Spring 2020 issue of Light: A Journal of Light Verse:
“E. B. White’s conviction that writing light verse is just as hard as writing heavy poetry may well apply to David Hedges. He has written both with tremendous skill. Hedges has proved himself among the country’s most able and versatile poets.”
A TROPHY FIT FOR A KING
“South African lions eat ‘poacher,’ leaving just his head”
—BBC News headline
A poacher set out with the aim
Of dispatching South African game.
With his Nitro Express
He was primed for success
And a shoo-in for fortune and fame.
The lions he happened to meet
Were delighted and made haste to eat
Both his lip-smacking haunch
And his succulent paunch
Not to mention his hands and his feet.
The lions heard voices and fled
Without taking the late poacher’s head.
Their intent? To come back,
Mount his head on a plaque
For display on the wall of their den.
David Hedges served six years as president of the Oregon Poetry Association and has been a member of the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission since 1988. He co-founded, with State Librarian Jim Scheppke and Poet Laureate Lawson Inada, the Oregon Poetry Collection at the University of Oregon’s Knight Library, and received the 2003 Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award from Literary Arts, Inc. for outstanding contributions to Oregon’s literary life. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Poet Lore, Measure, Trinacria, Able Muse, and Light: A Journal of Light Verse — and, closer to home, Northwest Magazine, Calapooya Collage, Left Bank, and Windfall.
Book Launch: Burden of Proof - Jacob Boas
Burden of Proof plots the coordinates of Holocaust remembrance from the vantage point of a survivor who was and wasn't there. Part I, Name and Address, traces the arc of Nazi persecution, 1940-1945, on a cross-section of Amsterdam Jewry, including the author's family, and postwar restitution processes. In Part II, Memorials Against Forgetting, Burden confronts the "unmasterable" past in a variety of settings: as a participant in a film "visiting the ghosts of the past" in Bergen-Belsen; a "special guest" of the Federal Republic of Germany out to polish its self-image; a botched commission to write up the story of "the Angel of Belsen," and finishes with a bizarre episode involving a Holocaust sculpture dug up in the backyard of a suburban home on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.
www.jacobboas.com
Monthly Café Littéraire — French Conversation Classes “Read Little, Read Together”
This winter and spring, L’École Buissonnière invites you to a monthly Café Littéraire, a French conversation class rooted in literature, seasonal culture, and thoughtful exchange.
Inspired by French cafés as places of ideas, debate, and imagination, these gatherings offer a slow, intimate approach to the French language. Each 90-minute session opens a thematic doorway through short literary texts, guided conversation, and gentle creative practices.
The focus is not performance or fluency at all costs, but presence, curiosity, and pleasure in thinking together.
Each month highlights a seasonal cultural moment in France, including traditions that shape language and collective imagination.
APRIL 5th | Read Little, Read Together
Lire peu, mais lire ensemble
Seasonal focus: Poisson d’Avril médiatique & la tradition du chocolat et des œufs de Pâques
From 10:30 to 12 pm (90 minutes)
📍 Practical Information
When: First Sunday of each month, February–May
From 10:30 to 12pm (90 minutes)
Where: Mother Foucault’s Bookshop
Group size: Limited to 10 participants
Pricing: Full bundle: $90
→ Includes all 4 sessions + a convivial Garden Party (a French-style apéro) celebrating French culture at the end of the cycleSingle session: $20
Drop-in: $25
Imaginary power and insurgent art: A conversation with Richard Gilman-Opalsky and Abigail Susik.
Imaginary power and insurgent art: A conversation with Richard Gilman-Opalsky and Abigail Susik.
Saturday, April 4
6:30 PM
Richard Gilman-Opalsky is a professor of political theory and philosophy in the School of Politics and International Affairs at the University of Illinois, where he is also a professor in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. He is the author of nine books, including Communist Ontologies, Imaginary Power, Real Horizons, The Communism of Love, Specters of Revolt, and Precarious Communism. His work has been translated and published in Greek, Spanish, French, and German.
Abigail Susik is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Willamette University and Joint Series Editor of Bloomsbury’s Transnational Surrealism imprint. She has published numerous books, including Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance (Penn State, 2022), and Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work (Manchester, 2021). Her new book on surrealism and anti-racism is forthcoming from Verso in 2027.
Postal Social 💌
Sat April 4 - Join us for Postal Social Club 💌
Write letters and postcards while drinking tea and also somehow socializing.
We’ll provide pens, typewriters, stationary, envelopes…bring yourself, a friend, your favorite quill pen if that’s your thing…and drop by between 2-4 PM
BOOK LAUNCH : BY THE WATERS OF PARADISE by Clare Kinberg
By the Waters of Paradise is a riveting family history that paints a startling portrait of racism and antisemitism and the lasting effects across generations.
In 2016, author Clare Kinberg discovered her estranged Aunt Rose's death certificate on the internet. What followed was an unearthing of contradictions of what "family" means in a segregated United States.
In the 1930s, Rose, an Ashkenazi Jewish woman, married Zebedee Arnwine, an African American man. The Arnwines faced a multitude of barriers due to their interracial marriage, and Rose faced familial and community ostracization for her choice. Her siblings, including Kinberg's father, kept her existence a secret from their children while building a strong sense of family and reinforcing the segregation between Jewish and Black communities. Some eighty years later, Kinberg, whose wife and daughters are descendants of the African diaspora, traced the life and legacy of her aunt. This masterful memoir weaves the genealogical and historical journeys of Rose and Zebedee with discussion of Rose and Kinberg's Jewish ancestry in Romania and Ukraine and investigates their mutual decisions to settle their interracial families in Michigan.
By the Waters of Paradise is more than just a memoir—it is a reckoning with racism in a day and age when it is needed more now than ever.
"By the Waters of Paradise is both an intimate memoir and a history of racism, religion, and politics, Kinberg reveals her aunt's story with sensitivity. She discovers the jagged intersections of Jewish and Black history in the United States, where white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and capitalism delimited each group's opportunities in turn—and sometimes in startlingly entangled ways." ——Lila Corwin Berman, professor of history and of Hebrew and Judaic studies, New York University
About the Author: Clare Kinberg is a writer, editor, and activist. She is the publisher and editor of the Washtenaw Jewish News and was the editor of Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal from 1989–2011.
CONCERT: Francis Pigeon, Yucky Star, Chandler Trey
An evening of ethereal indie / folk songwriters - Francis Pigeon, Yucky Star, Chandler Trey Johnson at Mother Foucaults
Saturday, March 21st
Join us for an evening of indie /alt singer songwriters.
Donation - $10 (cash / venmo at doors)
RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors
Doors @ 6:30 pm
Music at 7 pm
715 SE Grand
With ~
Yucky Star - You may know Kate Koller as the player of dreamy cello lines that make you drool, yucky star is all the magic you’ve always known to come from kate & then some.What was once in danger of becoming a collection of unfinished songs is finally making its way to the ears of listeners in portland & soon beyond, and the world is all the better for it.Their stream of consciousness lyrics flow like honey. With distinctive guitar parts in sticky nonstandard tunings you might be tempted to steal.Their voice hits that sweet spot between your ears and your eyes & the lyrics will not only sit with you THEY WILL FOLLOW YOU AROUND.After seeing your first yucky star set you’ll wonder why you never heard them before & when you’ll get to hear them again.
Francis Pigeon -Known by few as the dream queen, Francis Pigeon blends the lines of reality with her honest, ethereal and journeying lyricism. Her songs take on a world of their own as she navigates the dynamics of the human condition, carefully considering each outlook with ripeness. Don't be surprised if the effects of her siren songs portal you into inner territory you haven’t yet explored. Like it or not, Ms. Pigeon will coerce you into contemplation, but never leave you without a lifeline. She is currently frolicking along the sidewalks of Portland Oregon, befriending raindrops, rats, and of course, pigeons.
Multi - Instrumentalist Chandler Trey Johnson's full band
Reading : The Hunger Artists
March 11th at 5 PM
In “The Hunger Artists,” a Portland State University graduate English course taught by Dr. Sarah Lincoln, scholars and artists are asked to engage with philosophy, theory, and literature that depicts both the personal and political significances of experiences of hunger, including famine, hunger strikes, anorexia, and other forms of “disorderly eating.” Students from the class will read from their work, inspired by writers such as Kafka, Louise Gluck, and Eavan Boland. If you are intrigued by a woman who accidentally swallows a wasp or the analysis of Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman, please join us March 11th at 5 PM
Concert - Blair Borax + Where's Beth
Saturday March 7th
7:00pm | $12 -via venmo
Join us for an evening of folk singer songwriters.
Blair Borax:
Born on the East Coast, and home to the West, Blair Borax’s relationship with music began unexpectedly in 2016, when a friend gifted her a cheap guitar. Since then, Borax has become a prolific songwriter, recording artist, and performer, known for her distinctive voice, captivating melodies, and thoughtful songwriting that taps into the heart of being human.
Since she quit her day job in 2022, she has released three full length albums and played over 350 shows across the country.
Her third full length record, The Color Green (2025) is a collection of ten songs, searching for hope in dystopian times.
Blending intimate storytelling, gorgeous melodies, and rich instrumentation, The Color Green wanders through growing up, falling in love, missing home, watching parents get old, thinking about life and death, and slowing down to savor all of it.
Fans of Adrianne Lenker, Hannah Cohen, and Angie McMahon may find something to love in her music.
https://blairborax.bandcamp.com/album/the-color-green
Where's Beth:
Where’s Beth is the alt folk project of songwriter Sarabeth Weszely. Voice and lyrics clear as glass, her music carries the kind of honesty that makes a room go still. Raised in the Midwest and trained as a writer, Weszely brings a literary sensibility to her songs, shaped by close observation and restraint. She lived seven years in New York City, where she recorded for my mom & other lovers (2022) and Bone Broth (2024).
These early releases introduced her devotion to shared domestic spaces and the emotional textures of the mundane.
Her sophomore album Ache Is A Cricket In The Night continues this exploration of everyday life but widens its emotional landscape.
Across its songs, Weszely writes in tiny weather systems: a fridge that stops humming, a clogged drain gurgling like human pain, strangers pointing out untied shoes in the grocery line, white ants burrowing through wood at dusk.
These images widen into reflections on grief, anger, the quiet accumulation of loss, and the ordinary ache of being alive.
Recorded live in Weszely’s Seattle home studio, Ache Is A Cricket In The Night trusts presence over perfection. It does not rush toward resolution but stays, listens, offering itself as a companion and trusting that even the smallest details can hold entire emotional worlds.
Monthly Café Littéraire — French Conversation Classes “The World of the Francophonie”
This winter and spring, L’École Buissonnière invites you to a monthly Café Littéraire, a French conversation class rooted in literature, seasonal culture, and thoughtful exchange.
Inspired by French cafés as places of ideas, debate, and imagination, these gatherings offer a slow, intimate approach to the French language. Each 90-minute session opens a thematic doorway through short literary texts, guided conversation, and gentle creative practices.
The focus is not performance or fluency at all costs, but presence, curiosity, and pleasure in thinking together.
Each month highlights a seasonal cultural moment in France, including traditions that shape language and collective imagination.
MARCH 1st | The World of the Francophonie
Le monde de la francophonie: Aimé Césaire and Négritude: poetry as resistance, identity, dignity
From 10:30 to 12 pm (90 minutes)
📍 Practical Information
When: First Sunday of each month, February–May
From 10:30 to 12pm (90 minutes)
Where: Mother Foucault’s Bookshop
Group size: Limited to 10 participants
Pricing: Full bundle: $90
→ Includes all 4 sessions + a convivial Garden Party (a French-style apéro) celebrating French culture at the end of the cycleSingle session: $20
Drop-in: $25
Book launch : "When Beauty Carved Your Name" Jodhi Mather-Pike
Join us for the book release of Jodhi Mather-Pike's "When Beauty Carved Your Name". The book is a collection of poetry and photography exploring love, sexuality, grief, family, identity, and the elusive pursuit of beauty.
The evening will include a brief reading of several poems from the book as well as readings from other Portland poets. Several local musicians will provide ambient and classical music, including the artists Feverkin and Greg Allison. Complimentary wine and cocktails will be available.
Jodhi is a South African poet, musician and photographer currently living in Portland, Oregon. His work focuses on the nature of being and is primarily expressed through examining and capturing daily experiences. His documentary work is exhibited in Portland, with an upcoming exhibit at Franklin Foto for the Month of March.
Feverkin: https://www.feverkin.com/
Greg Allison: https://www.gregoryallison.net/
CONCERT Sammy Volkov & Tispur
Wednesday, Feb 25
from 7 pm to 10 pm
Sammy Volkov
Imagine if Roy Orbison and Townes Van Zandt co-wrote a song - weird - but it kinda works. Alberta-based Sammy Volkov's debut album ‘Be Alright!’ was celebrated by western-Canadian tastemakers, and his second (a country duets collection called 'The Day Had To Come') topped Bandcamp’s ‘Best Country Music of 2024’ list. His upcoming solo album “Songs From the Goodbye Garden” offers an eclectic range of styles, celebrating Sammy’s love for romantic 1960s pop and dreamy chamber folk.
Tispur
Tispur is a folk project led by Samwise Carlson in Portland, OR. They’re known for their angelic voice, unique finger-style guitar technique and gently hypnotic, moving performances akin to the spirits of Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan, and Joanna Newsom.
Translation Tuesday at Mother Foucault's!
Translation Tuesday at Mother Foucault's!
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
7:00 p.m.
Another Translation Tuesday triple feature!
Jacob Boas will read translations of Dutch literary critic Menno ter Braak. Prabu Muruganantham will read from his translations of Tamil poet Devadeval and excerpts of a short story he wrote in Tamil and translated into English. Allison A. deFreese will read translations of Mexican poets Janil Uc Tun and Ileana Garma. The reading will be followed by a short Q&A.
Come have a glass of wine and a listen!
Jacob (Jack) Boas was born in the Netherlands. He has a Ph.D. in Modern European History. His website can be found at www.jacobboas.com
Menno ter Braak – "my books are me" – was Holland's foremost interwar literary critic. "Temporary Illiteracy" (1934), the selection on tap, spoofs the reading habit and that "Monster of Civilization: Homo Lector". Ter Braak killed himself, aged 38, upon Germany's invasion of the Netherlands, May 1940.
Prabu Muruganantham is an immigrant writer, translator and filmmaker from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Devadevan is a contemporary Tamil poet. His poems express the profound joy of the human subconscious when it experiences unity with nature and the cosmos. Devadevan says, "If we come to understand that what is first expressed in poetry is our own personality, we will begin to take interest in the development of that personality. And the development of personality ultimately leads us to the state of realizing that it is nothing other than continuous self-realization.”
Allison deFreese is president of the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters (OSTI) and a former National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation fellow. Her book-length translations, into English, include works by María Negroni, Karla Marrufo, David Anuar, Carolina Esses, and astronaut José Moreno Hernández. Her translations also appear in The Harvard Review, The New England Review, Latin American Literature Today, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Los Angeles Review. She teaches in the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's MA in Spanish Translation and Interpreting (TIP) Program.
Janil Uc Tun (Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico) won the 2025 “Juegos Florales Hispanoamericanos Quetzaltenango” Award for Poetry (Guatemala), as well as the 2019 "Premio Peninsular de Poesía José Díaz Bolio" (José Díaz Bolio Peninsular Prize in Poetry). Janil’s book Gentry: Or the Name of a Tree with No Memory was awarded the prestigious 2022 “LXIII Juegos Florales Nacionales de Ciudad del Carmen” Award for Poetry. Uc Tun is a founding member of U Yotoch Yúuyum, a collective that promotes art and creativity while strengthening connections to Maya identity and serves as a lecturer in Literatura y Cultura Maya at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
Ileana Garma, born and raised in the Yucatan, holds a degree in Visual Arts from the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán. She has been the recipient of a PECDA (Program to Encourage Artistic Creation and Development/ Programa de Estímulo a la Creación y Desarrollo Artístico) Painting Fellowship (2018-2019) as well as two FONCA (National Endowment for Culture and Arts/Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes) fellowships in Poetry (2013-2014 and 2020-2021). Garma has also received the Premio National in Poetry for her book Caza de letras/The Letter Hunt (UNAM, 2012), the National Charles Bukowski Poetry Prize (2008), and was awarded the 2022 Agustín Yáñez National Short Story Prize for her book Cómo vivir sola después de los cuarenta/How to Live Alone After Forty (Libros del Marqués, 2023).
Concert - Music & Poetry - The Potatoes and Joel Martin from Toledo & Poets
An evening of Music & Poetry - The Potatoes, Joel Martin from Toledo, & Poets Joann Renee & Bethany Lee at Mother Foucaults
Saturday, Feb 21st
Join us for an evening of ethereal folk songwriters & poetry.
Donation - $10 -$15 sliding scale (cash / venmo at doors)
Doors @ 7 pm
Music at 7:30 pm
With ~
The PotatoesThe Potatoes are a five-member band from Portland, with a wonderful mix of sound from guitar, drums, accordion, trumpet, and vocals. They mainly sing sad songs, but mix it up with friendly banter in the live show and a stage presence with says, "We're all in this together." Like our friend Kurt Vonnegut, The Potatoes are here to help us all get through this thing, whatever it is.https://thepotatoes4.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/the_potatoes_band/
Joel Martin from ToledoJoel Martin is a songwriter from Toledo, Washington - hence the moniker "Joel Martin from Toledo," Joel's songs are a fascinating combination of deep lyrics and intricate melodies, which inspire and keep you on your toes. Joel has a talent for weaving various themes (such as mortality, baseball, nature, spirituality, and more) into songs which are very pleasant to listen to. Joel currently lives on the central coast of Washington State and enjoys sharing his music around the Northwest.
https://joelmartinfromtoledo.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/joelmartinfromtoledo/?hl=en
& Poetry from ..
Joann Renee
https://joannrenee.com/poetry/
https://www.instagram.com/jrbpoetry/
Bethany Lee
https://www.bethanyjoylee.com/
A Night of Queer Communism:Celebrating the publication of Pinko Magazine Issue IV
A Night of Queer Communism
Celebrating the publication of Pinko Issue IV
Editor Max Fox in conversation with Madeline Lane-McKinley & Sloane McNulty
Friday February 20 at 7 PM
Max Fox is a writer, translator, and founding editor of Pinko Magazine.
Madeline Lane-McKinley is a writer based in Portland, whose latest book is Solidarity with Children: An Essay Against Adult Supremacy (Haymarket Press, 2025).
Sloane McNulty is an adjunct professor, videographer, and organizer in Portland, OR. They have published work in Cyborgology, Culture Critique, and Oregon Arts Watch and are currently working on a book entitled Anti-Ethics: Gender, Threat, and the Rise of Postmodern Fascism.
Poetry evening with 4 Portland-based poets -- Genevieve DeGuzman, Eric Larsh, Judy Nahum, and Breen Nolan and visiting poet Clayton Adam Clark
Thursday, February 19
7:00 PM
Join us for an evening of poetry with 4 Portland-based poets -- Genevieve DeGuzman, Eric Larsh, Judy Nahum, and Breen Nolan -- plus visiting poet Clayton Adam Clark. They will each share poems from their recent collections and then circle up to talk creative processes, inspirations, their love of poetry, etc. and whatever else the audience wants to hear about.
Clayton Adam Clark lives in Saint Louis, his hometown, where he works as a mental health counselor in private practice alongside his wife, Tina, and their therapy dog, Tank. His latest poetry collection, Auscultate, was published by Galileo Press in 2025, and his debut poetry collection, A Finitude of Skin, won the 2017 Moon City Poetry Award (Moon City Press, 2018). He is especially grateful for an Artist Support Grant from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, which is supporting his travel for this reading.
Genevieve DeGuzman is a poet and essayist based in Portland. She has received the Oregon Literary Fellowship and StoryBoard Fellowship, as well as support from Vermont Studio Center, Poets & Writers, Oregon Arts Commission, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council. An Alice James Award finalist and Tin House alum, Genevieve has work in The Adroit, Poetry Northwest, phoebe, RHINO, and other publications. Her first collection Karaoke at the End of the World is forthcoming March 2026 from JackLeg Press.
Eric Larsh is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Desert (2024, Cathexis Northwest Press). His writing can also be found at Los Angeles Review, Thin Air Online, and elsewhere. Eric received his MFA from Portland State University. He also hosts MAKE SPACE RADIO, a biweekly independent radio show at Freeform Portland.
Judy Nahum (she/her) lives and writes in Portland, OR. An alum of Tin House and the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, Judy has work in Pile Press, Muleskinner Journal, and Yes, Poetry, among others. Her first poetry chapbook, i have wrestled with the way clouds weep, was published in 2024 by Querencia Press.
Breen Nolan is a writer from Rochester, New York. She holds an MFA from the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert, where she received the 2023 Founder’s Award and was the inaugural recipient of the Lizi Gilad Silver Memorial Scholarship. She previously served as Managing Editor of The Coachella Review. Her poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Cooper Dillon Books in spring 2026. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
Concert - Shore Pines, Essie & The Hum, Emma Bakshi Davis
Wednesday, Feburary 18th
Evenbrite RSVP : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1980237543800?aff=oddtdtcreator
Join us for an evening of Indie Pop & folk singer songwriters.
Donation - $10 (cash / venmo at doors)
RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors
Doors @ 7 pm
Music at 7:30 pm
715 SE Grand
With ~
Shore Pines takes a glitchy, jazz-inflected approach to aughts-era indie rock. Their songs feature twinning guitar and trumpet riffs, warm synths, and whirling female vocals. Having spent the last two years in a flow of indie nostalgia and galactic sounds, the band released their debut album, Loom, in May 2025.
Essie and The Hum craft ethereal indie-folk rock shaped by the magic of live performance. Based in Portland, OR, their sound drifts from intimate, slow-burn ballads to full-throttle rock moments, pulling listeners into a wormhole they won’t want to leave.
Emma Bakshi Davis is a Portland-based singer/songwriter blending intimate indie folk with the melodic flair of modern pop. Inspired by nature, the human mind, and the intensity with which she experiences the world, she writes honest, evocative songs exploring vulnerability, and resilience. Emma released her debut single, Lover of the Wind, in October 2025.
WHY PRINT? A MIXER AND PANEL EVENT HIGHLIGHTING THE ROLE OF PRINT IN AN DIGITAL-FIRST WORLD
For at least the past several years, there’s been talk of a “print revival" in media—but did print ever really go away?
We're gathering editors and designers from local independent and nonprofit publishers at @motherfoucaultsbooks for a conversation about the role of print in a digital-first world.
Join @kitchentablemag, @provecho.magazine, @buckmanjournal, and @oregonhumanities to discuss:
✴ Why does print persist, not only as nostalgia, but as a still-revolutionary technology for storytelling and connection?
✴ How do print magazines offer unique tools for community building?
✴ How can print media elevate stories and voices that get lost in platform and algorithm-driven media?
✴ What challenges do small independent publishers face in sustaining print media today, and what potential solutions exist?
The first half of this event will be dedicated to discussion and Q&A, and the other half will be for socializing and community building.
No RSVP needed!
Come celebrate Valentine's Day at the bookshop ❤️
Come celebrate Valentine's Day at the bookshop ❤️
Saturday, February 14th
7 PM - 10 PM
With candlelight and champagne, cakes and books and oysters and caviar
Featuring live hot jazz music by Dave Ricketts of “Gaucho" from S.F.
Twenty dollars per person
Or 📞 Call the shop (503)236-BOOK
A benefit for L’École Buissonnière
Poetry Reading : Christopher Adams "Lardo Bardo" with Lauren Isa Arri, Gaspar Burden, Chris Maday, Bee Dunlap
“Lardo Bardo” poetry reading with:
Christopher Adams
Lauren Isa Arri
Gaspar Burden
Chris Maday
Bee Dunlap
Friday, February 13
7:00 PM
CONCERT: Trigger Object, Ember Veil, Troll Hart Piano
An evening of ethereal, dark folk, experimental, dark wave ! - Trigger Object, Ember Veil, Troll Hart Piano at Mother Foucaults
Wendesday, Feb 11
Link to RSVP : https://www.eventbrite.com/e/trigger-object-ember-veil-troll-hart-piano-at-mother-foucaults-tickets-1980277947649?aff=oddtdtcreator
Donation - $10-$20 sliding scale (cash / venmo at doors)
RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors
Doors @ 7 pm
Music at 7:30 pm
715 SE Grand
With ~
Vern Avola is a composer, multimedia artist, based in Portland, Oregon. She founded EMS Records. Avola's solo sound works uses deep electronic sounds to geomap the hidden layers that also come with a given "present moment"; from the guttural subterranean or the hallways of the earthly punk and DIY culture to consensual abduction and flight. Avola's compositions hold space for these physical stretches that become emblems of safety when society faces a truth in zero control within a political predestination. In this process Avola brings an ability back to the listener to think and exist outside of man's algorithm.Since 2007, Avola has performed this work internationally and has released several albums on Sige Recordings, An Out Recordings, Accident Prone Records, Gravity Records and Nadine Records. She currently has a radio show on East Village Radio and has had radio shows on KRCB, KFFP, The Neon Hospice (UK) and Repeater Radio (UK).
Ember Veil
Ember Veil is a dark folk project that weaves stories and spells from the past into gothic soundscapes. Using a wide range of ancient and contemporary instruments, Ember Veil expresses a desire for a deeper connection with both the distant past and the present world around us. Their live performance is an immersive storytelling experience, including reading from medieval texts, live drumming, and handcrafted costumes.
25 years of devoted musical practice and many long stories of spiritual exploration have led to the faerie forest operas of "Troll Hart Piano", Troll Hart's solo project.In Troll Hart Piano, Troll unleashes the mythological storyteller as an integrated expression of her spiritual practice. With operatic singing and narration in tongues somewhere between jazz-scatting and primal glossolalia, the ancient spirits of the woodland realm are summoned to journey the harmonic halls of Troll's fantastical piano-based improvisations and compositions.
Concert - Larsen Gardens With Kyle J. Glenn & Mikey Whalen
Sarah Edmonds’s career in music exists to paint an intimate portrait of transformation and acceptance. Blossoming with the warmth and care required to look within, her music as Larsen Gardens is an alchemical reflection of what it’s like to boldly shine light into a shadowy place. Hailing from music city where she was a devotee to cool jazz and intimate vocal stylings of the 40s and 50s and where she made a jazz record with world-renowned pianist Beegie Adair, Sarah found her writer’s voice when she moved to Seattle in 2017. Embracing her penchant for nuanced oddity and vulnerability quickly empowered her writer’s voice, and Sarah established herself as a musical and creative force in Seattle. Her collection of songs gained the interest of Nashville friends and producers Jen Gunderman (Sheryl Crow, Jayhawks) and Joe Pisapia (KD Lang, Guster), and the result is a dreamy, hopeful kaleidoscope of mellotron, washy guitars, twinkling piano, and, in some tracks, lo-fi apartment-recording and producing. Her record affirms that it’s okay to feel how you feel: “A lot of people are out there feeling things and they don’t even know it; or they're scared to show it. Being real with ourselves about the nuance of sad or unwanted feelings can actually be quite pleasurable when we sense we’re not alone in it…and wow when someone realizes this they crack right open into love and acceptance and it’s one of the most beautiful things to witness.” So setting the scene for this kind of transformation, we learn, is hardly as important as respecting the path by which to get there–the path of transcendence through self-acceptance, accomplished only with the fiercest of kindness and willingness to remain open-hearted no matter the obstacle. Moonflower showcases both the raw and well-executed in “Feel Good,” the easy listening and vulnerability of “Clouds,” and finally the hopeful foreshadow of work to come in the explosive “Halfway There.” With this record and the live transmission of its gift, listeners receive an experience of dimensional beauty that is mysteriously and simultaneously deeply human and altogether transcendent.
Kyle J. Glenn (he/him) is a singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon, who has been writing and performing his own songs since 2014. His music blends folk rock, alt-country, and singer-songwriter traditions, and his latest record, “Everywhere is Close to Somewhere Else”, reflects a decade-long journey to find "home." Inspired by artists like Gillian Welch, John Prine, and Big Thief, Kyle's story-driven songs have earned him features on Kink FM 102's Homegrown Discovery and performances at venues across the U.S., Spain, and Portugal. Kyle can be found around the PNW performing solo and backed by his band, The Wandering Kind.
Mikey Whalen
https://mikeywhalen.com/
Is a Portland-based songwriter who draws inspiration from the songwriting heavy hitters of decades past. His songs tell stories of lovable misfits and existential woes, sometimes melancholic, sometimes humorous, and often both.
Postal Social Club
Postal Social Club
Come to Postal Social hour at Mother Foucault’s 💌
Write letters and postcards while drinking tea and also somehow socializing.
We’ll provide pens, typewriters, stationary, envelopes…bring yourself, a friend, your favorite quill pen if that’s your thing…and drop by between 2-4 pm
For introverts (well, one introvert at a time), there is the option to grab your cup of tea and head upstairs to the secret solo letter-writing desk, and participate in a quieter fashion.
Learn more about our events.
To organize a reading or book launch, call (503) 236-2665.