“You might say I have/this peculiar fascination/with the dead,” writes Brenda Marie Osbey in All Saints: New & Selected Poems. In the book, which won the 1998 American Book Award, the New Orleans native writes her bloodline and in the process successfully transcribes the city’s “Hoodoo saints and their little Catholic cousins” into lyrical verse. Joining her for tonight’s Katherine Zadravec Memorial Reading is DJ Renegade, a four-time National Poetry Slam finalist whose poems satiate aural cravings with their mix of hiphop riffs, signifying spirits, jazz, and blues. The Mardi Gras reception after the reading promises plenty of cake and regalia for everyone. Even the statue of the Bard will be decked in beads and a mask at 8 p.m. at the Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol St. SE. $10. (202) 544-7077. (Holly Bass)