Downtown Everett has two weekly poetry open mics within a few blocks of each other, giving the city's writers more stages to choose from.

A new Tuesday night event at Strange Ways Bar and Stage, 2610 Colby Ave., joins the Everett Poetry Night, a Monday fixture at Sisters Restaurant since 2006. The Daily Herald first reported on the growing scene in its Sound & Summit magazine.

Barracuda Guarisco, the pen name of poet Kris Hall, hosts the Tuesday open mic at Strange Ways.

The bar opened in 2025 in the former home of Everett Improv Bar & Stage, which closed in August 2025 after its owner left the city. Guarisco has run reading events in Seattle and Everett before, but said he wanted this weekly slot to focus solely on poetry.

"No matter how you do, you still feel like you're miserable and terrible," Guarisco told the Herald. "But it's so vulnerable, you have to just love it."

On a Tuesday evening at Strange Ways, about a half-dozen people sat watching the bar's small stage as poets took turns at the mic. Guarisco closed by reading a passage from one of his own books.

The Monday night series carries a longer history. Garrett Rutledge founded Everett Poetry Night in 2006. Duane Kirby Jensen, an artist who has attended open mics since his student days at Western Washington University in the 1980s, took over as host in August 2013.

Jensen grew up dyslexic and has said poetic language, free from strict grammar rules, came more naturally to him.

The event moved several times. It landed at Sisters Restaurant, 2804 Grand Ave., in 2022. The restaurant, founded in 1983 by Martha Quall and her daughters, has been an Everett staple for decades.

According to the Western Washington Poets Network, Monday sign-up begins at 5 p.m. The open mic runs 5:45 to 7:15 p.m., followed by a featured poet from 7:15 to 7:45 p.m. All money collected in "The Bag of Giving" goes directly to the featured poet, and the venue provides a meal.

The Tuesday open mic at Strange Ways runs 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Victoria Buritsch, a frequent participant in both events, told the Herald she began writing after going through serious mental health challenges before the COVID-19 pandemic. She described reading aloud at an open mic as its own kind of magic, because other people are listening.

Beyond the two weekly nights, the poets network lists several other Everett events: a summer Sunday series called Ghost Mic at Lowell Riverfront Park running June through August, the Lucky Devil Open Mic on first and third Wednesdays at Lucky Dime on Hewitt Avenue and a Second Friday event at Artisans Books and Coffee, also on Hewitt.

Both weekly open mics are free and welcome poets of all experience levels.