Hot Dogs, Cracker Jacks, Peanuts, Poetry, and Fun on tap at Baseball Open Mic

Orenaug Mountain Publishing (OMP) and Vicinanza Studios and Gallery (VSG) will host a baseball-themed poetry open mic Sunday, April 19, at 4 p.m. at VSG, 493 Heritage Road, Southbury, featuring baseball poet Sara deBeer of West Hartford. The event will celebrate the national pastime with music, hot dogs, Cracker Jacks, peanuts, and a community reading of "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer.

The celebration will be hosted by Connecticut baseball poets Ed Dzitko of Southbury and Bill Moorhead of Guilford, who will engage in a baseball conversation in verse. An open mic will follow. Poets wishing to read should plan on a two poem limit, or no more than five minutes.

In addition, Orenaug Mountain Publishing will launch its latest anthology, Pleasant Pastimes, Poems about the Sports We Love, a new collection celebrating sports from around the world. Books will be available for purchase.

Admission is a requested donation of supplies for the Southbury Food Bank. Items in critical need are bottled juice, canned hash, beef stew, Vienna sausage and Spam, canned vegetables, gluten-free items, hot cocoa, jelly, ketchup, mayonnaise, oatmeal packets and canisters, paper towel, personal care items for men and women, pudding cups, salad dressing, sugar-free foods, tissues, and toilet paper.

deBeer (storydebeer.com) is a versatile, experienced, and studied performer, a riveting entertainer who delights audiences of all ages. Dzitko (edwardiantimes.net) has published Swinging Away: Baseball in Poetry and Prose, edited OMP’s Brand New Season baseball collection, and appeared in OMP’s Who’s Your Team? collection. Moorhead has widely contributed to The Baseball Bard, a not-for-profit membership organization publishing online the poetry of the game, and has been published by Holt, Rinehart, Winston (Owl Books), Sport Literate, and various other literary and business journals. A knuckleball protege of Jim Bouton, author of Ball Four, he was co-MVP of the 2011 Men’s 55+ Senior Baseball World Series.