We had an amazing 2017, so let's kick this year off properly with an amazing feature: Barbara Fant!  Also, we'll have our awesome Open Mic!

$2 at the door (cash or card) or anytime under the Donate Tab!

Barbara Fant, originally from Youngstown, Ohio is a minister, poet, and artist facilitator. She received her bachelor of art degree in English Literature and Language Arts in 2010 and her Masters of Theological Studies in 2012. She is a former employee of the Huckleberry House and of Art for a Child’s Safe America, working in shelters, correctional facilities, and elementary schools teaching art as a form of healing. She is a member of Transit Arts, ArtFluential of REACH communications, Is Said and the Advance Party, and has also been a regular performer on the radio show Street Soldiers. Commissioned by The Columbus Foundation, her poem “Today, Beginning Again,” written for Columbus’s Bicentennial year, can be found in Revealed: Columbus, The Story of Us. Her first poetry collection, Paint, Inside Out was released in April 2010 from Penmanship Books of New York City when she was awarded The Cora Craig Award for Young Women Authors. Additionally, she is the author of two chapbooks, RibCaged and Them Brilliant Suns, both released in March of 2017. She has been on four National Poetry slam teams from Columbus and has represented the city in five Individual National and World Poetry slam competitions. She placed 8th out of 96 poets in the 2017 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She currently works at The Columbus Foundation as the Nonprofit Outreach Administrator and is an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles. Barbara considers poetry her ministry.