Thom Francis welcomes poets Mojavi and Poetic Visionz who shared their work at the 2024 Word Fest Open Mic at the Sand Lake Center for the Arts on April 27, 2024.

When two long-time area spoken word artists, who have since moved away, walked in the front door of the Sand Lake Center for the Arts, Word Fest Open Mic host Mary Panza made it a point to add them to the list.

Today, we are going to hear from those two incredible poets.

Mojavi, who was the host of the Soul Kitchen series at Clayton’s Restaurant in the late-90s and the founder of Urban Guerrilla Theatre after that, read some childhood memoirs. Poetic Visionz who was one of the original Nitty Gritty Slam poets a decade ago, representing Albany at the National Poetry Slam, took the stage with his deconstructive word-play.

You can find more information, photos, and videos on all of the Word Fest events on the Hudson Valley Writers Guild website, hvwg.org