16

SUNDAY

Audre Lorde, poet and latter-day saint of the Black Arts movement, wrote that poetry was not a luxury—just as the medium began to seem a luxury to an American public more interested in fiction. The In Your Ear poetry series, whose upcoming reading features innovative e-poet Lee Riley-Hammer, seeks to prove Lorde right in the Internet age. Riley-Hammer’s impressionistic, labyrinthine lines prove perfect fodder for Weepers, a truly interactive piece of “hyperfiction” posted on the George Mason University Web journal English Matters. Her experimental style—more relevant than T.S. Eliot to Bill Gates’ bastard children—should not come cheap. Riley-Hammer will read with Hiram Larew, a Prince George’s County bard, whose first collection, Part Of, renders his proletarian vision in spare language. At 3 p.m. at the District of Columbia Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW. $3. (202) 462-7833. (Justin Moyer)