Buffalo Readings

Buffalo Readings is a poetry reading series and group. There have been hundreds of Buffalo Readings held since 2002. Member's of the Buffalo Readings refer to themselves as "Buffalo" or "Buffalo Poets" and encourage listeners to shout out "moose" in addition to applauding at a Buffalo Reading. They do not hold poetry slams, and they have cited their dislike of slams as a factor in the formation of the group. Members of the Buffalo Poets were the featured bloggers on the Oxford University Press website for National Poetry Month.
The group was founded in New York City in 2001 by the original three Buffalo poets: David Acevedo, Roger Kenny, and Anthony Morena. All three were friends from high school, and had been collaborating on the independent "Ripped Magazine" Issue 4. During this time Roger was renting a room in a victorian style house in Jersey City, which became the creative nebulous for the early Buffalo Poets. The first official Buffalo Readings was held on February 21st, 2002 at Fat Cat Jazz and Billiards on Christopher St. in Manhattan's West Villiage. The show included performances by several poets, a live DJ, musical performance, and video performances, including an anaglyph video of poet Kurtis Darby reading. [1] Red/Blue 3D glasses were distributed with admission. After the show, on the trip back to the Jersey City house, the poets gave out 3D glasses to commuters on one car of the Path train. The entire car was full of people wearing 3D glasses, even a police officer partook. Since then, the Buffalo have had a spotty run of regular events. Members have come and members have left. David Acevedo took Buffalo Readings to the west coast, first Tacoma and Seattle, then Portland Oregon. In Portland the series gained some momentum, attracting many new artists into the Buffalo fold.
Between David's two west coast excursions, he met the revolutionary activist Rapheal Bueno, who was running the squat turned community center "Casa Del Sol: Future City", in the Bronx. This led to a regular reading series held every third Friday at Casa Del Sol. The early readings at Casa were held in pitch dark, in the freezing New York winter. There was no electricity, and the only heat was a wood-burning stove that Raphael Bueno had made out of old oil drums. [2] The readings continued until Casa Del Sol was shut down by the police on November 20, 2004. [3] [4] Most of those readings were held in the Adverse Posession Gallery, with two long tables end to end, candelabras lit, and a small radio playing Jazz in the background. [5] By this time, the core group had expanded. Anthony Morena had stopped attending the readings, and Noah Levin and Aaron Arnout were coming regularly.
Post Casa Del Sol, the Buffalo have continued to hold events, but not with the regularity of the Casa era. Monthly readings were held for a while in Aaron's basement apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They were invited to hold readings at the activist cafe Vox Pop. There have been two such readings to date. [6] [7] In April of 2007, the Buffalo were invited to blog on the Oxford University Press website for National Poetry Month. [8]
In 2007 Roger opened the Buffalo Readings Theater/Cafe/Bookstore in the virtual online community Second Life. [9] They held a live reading broadcast into Second Life, at the Multi Media Arts Center which included a trouble ridden call in poet from the West Coast Buffalo, James Honzik. There is an internet radio feed that Roger operates, which currently plays mostly recordings of past readings, however their website hints at future live events being broadcast on the station. Including some sort of broadcast open mic. [10]