Aaron Angello is co-curator of "e-Poetry: The Past, Present and Future of Electronic Poetry," both a showcase and laboratory for engaging works of digital literature, which comes to Counterpath Gallery + Performance Space at 7 p.m. tomorrow, on Saturday, May 26. "e-Poetry" will include multimedia installations and live readings from area poets, all exploring the interface between the written word and the tools of literary technology.

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While it often gets overshadowed by the music scene, Denver actually has a rich history of underground literature. From the Kerouac-inspired bohemian coffee and bookshops of 1960s Colfax to the Yellow Rake readings at Old Curtis Street Tavern, our city has been spawning independent works of fiction and poetry for decades. And there are few locals today more closely associated with DIY publishing than Charly "The City Mouse" Fasano. Whether hustling his books of poetry or impressively crafted audio-books, or giving one of his now iconic readings (he once opened a sold-out show at the Gothic -- an audience size almost unheard of for a live poet), Fasano has rooted himself in this city, becoming as much a part of the creative fabric as home-brew or cutesy indie-folk bands.

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Samuel Opoku.

Thornton High School senior Samuel Opoku, a two-time Colorado Poetry Out Loud champion, has made it to the final round in Washington, D.C. -- again -- and will be aiming for bardic glory as the national recitation contest concludes tonight.

And not just glory. The winner of the event, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, walks away with a $20,000 cash prize.

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In this week's cover story, "Water World," Westword writers explored the South Platte, the river that runs through Denver and is showing new life.

Our favorite spot on the Platte, though, could well be my favorite spot in Denver: the point at Confluence Park where the past and the present come together. While kayakers breeze by and kids frolic in the shadows -- pointing to the Platte's beachhead future -- you can also feel the plaque dedicated to Colorado Poet Laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferril, inscribed with one of his poems:

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Courtesy of Angela Nicole

Slam Nuba's 2012 grand slam competitors.

Among the lines delivered at poetry slams, one is often repeated: "The point is not the points; the point is the poetry." This has never been more true than over the last week and a half in Denver, when all three of the city's national teams -- Slam Nuba, the Mercury Cafe team and teenage dreamers Minor Disturbance -- hosted annual grand slams to decide who makes this year's roster. With more than thirty poets qualified across the three competitions and only fifteen places in the final lineups, the past ten days have been passionate, poetic and, yes, pretty slamming.

Continue through to see your 2012 slam teams.

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Poet/mentor Ken Arkind and Minor Disturbance.

Denver's earned its rep as a slam-poet factory: The city not only supports two competitive adult teams, each of which has taken a national title in the last decade, but it also has a strong youth wing, Minor Disturbance, one of this year's Westword MasterMind Award-winners. And tonight is when they really get to shine, at the seventh annual Minor Disturbance Grand Slam, where Denver's top teen slam poets, culled from a series of slam-offs throughout the year, will compete to represent the state this summer at the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival in San Francisco. These seasoned performers are anything but amateur in delivery, so come prepared for some fierce verbal expression.

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Sister Spit is coming. The queer, feminist-minded, spoken-word tour will land at St. Cajetan Event Center on the Auraria campus Friday night, and at the helm of the event is founder, author and icon Michelle Tea. From her debut memoir The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America to Rose of No Man's Land, her young adult fiction, Tea consistently produces bold, thrilling and confessional work.

We caught up with the San Francisco-based writer in advance of the show to talk about writing her memoir, organizing tit-ins in Tucson, and how to deal with Mercury retrograde.

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Serena Chopra's new chapbook is out now on Flying Guillotine Press.

Like a lot of art, Serena Chopra's debut chapbook, Penumbra, was inspired in part by a tumultuous relationship. "There was a really bad fight in which I stole a saw, literally I stole a saw from this person's house because I did not know what else to do," laughs the Denver resident and Titmouse magazine co-founder. Almost immediately after, she began writing the first poem in the book, "Force and Stress," in which she examines her intentions for stealing that saw. But while the catalyst for the book was the relationship, she says where the project ended up was somewhere completely different.

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That Minnesota slam poet Sierra DeMulder commands an audience is a given: The high-ranked word-slinger helped the St. Paul Poetry Slam Team take the nationals two years in a row, and that's the top line on a list of kudos she's received over the last few years.

The author of the poetry volume The Bones Below, DeMulder is also the featured guest at tonight's Slam Nuba session, where the competition is getting fiercer and fiercer and things are edging ever closer to the final slam-off on April 6 that will determine the members of MasterMind-winning Slam Nuba's 2012 national team.

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David Mason

On a Tuesday night on the cusp of spring, when a young man's fancy turns and the cruelest month looms just days away, you could do worse than head to Lakewood to hear great verse declaimed at the seventh annual Poetry Out Loud state finals.

Declaimed, emoted, and embraced -- by high school students from across Colorado, vying to represent their school (and favorite poets) at a national competition in a few weeks in Washington, D.C., where the winner walks away with $20,000.

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