FOUND POETS! featuring Gifted! at The Big Easy

Gifted’s art provides audiences with instant access to poetry by fostering the love of language. She has hosted SpokenWord Soul for 16 years, at the legendary Greenwich in Cincinnati. Found Poets! is about the entertainment of the spirit through performance poetry. From our development program grads to nationally acclaimed headliners, Found Poets! is a challenging, committed poetry community dedicated to hosting a good night out. (Headliner) Gifted “Radiance is the flame of me, so I reveal this Glow to Another” My Artistic creations started about 22 years ago, I have been a part of hosting a Poetry and Jazz vibe, known as SpokenWord Soul for 16 years, at the legendary Greenwich. I have used my talents to become a catalyst to expand interest and access to poetry; through reading, writing, speaking, and overall fostering the love of language. IG: @giftedjohnsonwilkinson (Openers) Mahrs Schoppman Utilizing oral traditions, Mahrs writes most of his poems with the intention to embody language in motion. These poems carry themes of queer liberation, life after faith, and the multiplicity of relatedness. IG: @mahrs_likes_to_draw. Grayson Thompson Grayson [he/him] is a Black, Jamaican-American, queer transgender poet and therapist. Grayson is Winner of Foglifter Press’s 2024 Start A Riot! Chapbook Prize for “Sand Bodied Florida Boy” (June 2025) and Write Bloody Publishing’s 2024 Jack McCarthy Book Prize (September 2025). IG: @graysonwritespoems Original Giotis Giotis is a culture writer, poet, and community facilitator. His wide-ranging interviews and explorations are published on Ghost at The SUB_SCRIBE Newsletter. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, anthologies and the poetry collections Daybreak (FMRL Press, 2019), and Live in Santa Cruz (Inhabit.Books, 2025). IG: @foundpoets Special Guests Santa Cruz Mic Drop with a POETRY POP UP!