Reading

The Louisiana French word lagniappe means “a little something extra.” In New Orleans, lagniappe is a gesture of generosity—a small bonus given freely, whether an extra shucked oyster, a long pour, or an unexpected kindness from a neighbor. This spirit of abundance and reciprocity resonates where poetry is not just a genre but a living practice embedded in community, resistance, and cultural exchange. These Lagniappe Readings celebrate this ethos, offering a space where five poets perform their work.

The Louisiana French word lagniappe means “a little something extra.” In New Orleans, lagniappe is a gesture of generosity—a small bonus given freely, whether an extra shucked oyster, a long pour, or an unexpected kindness from a neighbor. This spirit of abundance and reciprocity resonates where poetry is not just a genre but a living practice embedded in community, resistance, and cultural exchange. These Lagniappe Readings celebrate this ethos, offering a space where five poets perform their work.

NOPF presents our main event with poets Ariana Reines & Tongo Eisen-Martin. Performances begin at 7pm on Saturday, April 12th, at Café Istanbul in the New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 St. Claude, New Orleans, LA 70117. This event is free and open to the public. Funding for this event has been provided by the State of Louisiana and administered by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. NOPF is also in partnership with New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Fund. 

In partnership with the Conseil pour le développement du français en Louisiane & the Division of the Arts, our annual International Night features four award-winning French creators from Paris: Frédéric Forte of Oulipo, Virginie Poitrasson, Joce Mienniel, and Michelle Noteboom, who will perform a bilingual set of poetry and jazz improvisation. The performance will begin at 7 PM on Friday, April 11th, at Café Istanbul in the New Orleans Healing Center, 2372 St. Claude, New Orleans, LA 70117. This event is free and open to the public.

For our Locals Night Opening Gala, NOPF curates a showcase of emerging and established New Orleans poets actively engaged in the community. Encompassing a broad range of subjects, poetics, and styles, these poets testify to the city’s vibrant and diverse sensibilities. Featured local poets include Rachel Zavecz, Andy Young, Brad Richard, Marian Moore, Benjamin Morris, Skye Jackson, and Ariel Francisco, performing at Saturn Bar at 3067 St. Claude Ave., New Orleans, LA 70117 at 7pm on Thursday, April 10th. This event is free and open to the public.

In celebration of five years as a small press (and our first year in New Orleans), Carrion Bloom Books will host a reading featuring writers and translators from across our catalogue. Toasting five years of handmade chapbooks exploring the grotesque and ecstatic, five years of paper objects and letterpressed ephemera, and five years of international, translingual, boldly original experiments. 

Since 2008, DoubleCross Press has produced letterpress chapbooks of poetry and poetics by emerging and established poets. This reading presents work by DoubleCross editors Anna Gurton-Wachter and MC Hyland and by poets published by DoubleCross over the course of its eighteen-year career.

A reading of new poetry in translation from Latin America, read by the translators. This reading will also highlight work from recent and forthcoming books by Liliana Ponce (Argentina) translated by Michael Martin Shea, Roberta Iannamico (Argentina) translated by Alexis Almeida, César Moro (Peru) translated by Leslie Bary and Esteban Quispe, and Ennio Moltedo (Chile) translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz. The reading will be followed by a brief Q&A. 

This is a performance at the intersection of language and sonic fragmentation. Poetry's movement through realm-making is dependent on how language empowers a species into its transformative self, starting with the vital element of listening.

Resistance Dreams, an interactive collaboration hosted by Red Rover Series, will involve any writers who wish to participate. Our goals are to foster innovative forms, aesthetic solidarities, and a multifarious performance with this year’s NOPF community so all have the opportunity to improvise in live space and time together. We will continue to recruit collaborators up to the start of the 2025 festival.