Unfortunaely, the Open Mic event that was to held in conjunction with the Niagara Falls Night of Art has been cancelled.
Apparently the venue, Local, has been sold to new owners. They have temporarily closed Local, presumably to renovate.
Apologies to the readers and the people who were going to attend and those who have helped promote it. If you did promote it, please be sure to update the places where it was promoted.
We will probably just announce the winners on this site once the judging is finished, unless another event crops up somewhere.
Please join me at Local on Thursday, September 17, from 7pm-9pm for an open mic event.
This event is being held during the Niagara Falls Night of Art 2026 celebration. The Local is a few steps south of The Exchange campus, the principal Night of Art venue.
Listen to Kimiko Hahn perform The Music of Niagara in 1881 as Described by Eugene Thayer in Scribner’s Monthly
What did I hear? The roar of Niagara Falls?
Niagara Gives a tone and not a roar!
Under the Horseshoe, in its misty halls—
What did I hear? Not the roar of Niagara Falls!
The sound is neither noise nor squall—
one’s organs are an organ; the shower, the chords.
What a choir under Niagara Falls!
Niagara waters sing! Only a beast roars!
Source: Kimiko Hahn
Kimiko Hahn, New York State Poet Laureate, wrote and performed this poem for the Niagara Falls Poetry Project’s 25th Anniversary, where it was featured at the April 9, 2026 event launching the Poetry Contest. Click here for information about the contest and the event.
Four hundred million years ago, a shallow sea
languished across the northern continent
and pressured layers of mud, silt, and marine shells
into varying layers of varying resistance until
the shale entertained a miles-thick ice sheet
that scoured the land into great basins. Meltwater
and glacial debris were ushered over the face.
Undercutting and collapsing yielded the gorge,
the falls, the whirlpools. Then man harnessed the flow,
and the inevitable retreat slowed thus preserving
a home for honeymoon and poetry.
Not preserved
is the origin of the name Niagara–possibly adopted
from the Iroquois, Huron or Seneca languages
of which, today, only a few people can still speak.
Source: Kimiko Hahn, 2026
Kimiko Hahn, New York State Poet Laureate, wrote and performed this poem for the Niagara Falls Poetry Project’s 25th Anniversary, where it was featured at the April 9, 2026 event launching the Poetry Contest. Click here for information about the contest and the event.
Listen to Kimiko Hahn performing “Maud Willard and Her Niagara Falls Stunt, 1901”
Maud Willard With Barrel
The barrel with Maud and her dog
shoots into the rapids’ familiar tossing
then to a swirling of strange currents.
Into the whirlpool, they sink from sight,
sucked into its merciless depths.
The barrel with Maud and her dog
then springs from the maelstrom,
courses far from tourists on shore
in the swirling of strange currents.
Now dark–a search light into the gorge
illuminates the thrashing waves and
the barrel with Maud and her dog.
Five hours–the woman’s been imprisoned
in the rolling, revolving waters
till from that strange swirl of currents
the men catch the cask though only the pet
—nose seen in an air hole—leaps out.
The Tale of Daredevil Maud and Her Dog
is still strangely swirling. And current.
Source: Kimiko Hahn, 2026
Kimiko Hahn, New York State Poet Laureate, wrote and performed this poem for the Niagara Falls Poetry Project’s 25th Anniversary, where it was featured at the April 9, 2026 event launching the Poetry Contest. Click here for information about the contest and the event.
