A Busboys and Poetry event! *SPARKLE* Open Mic Poetry is a queer-friendly and focused reading series that has featured an array of LGBT-dedicated poets. 

Regie Cabico is one of the country's leading innovators and pioneers of The Poetry Slam having won 3 National Top Prizes and winning The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam. Bust Magazine ranked him in the "100 Men We Love" and The Kenyon Review called him the Lady Gaga of Poetry. He has appeared on two seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and NPR's Snap Judgement. A former Artist-in-Residence for Asian Pacific American Studies at New York University, Regie's work is published in over 40 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.

Danielle Evennou is an ex-cheerleader from Central New Jersey. The daughter of a car salesman and stenographer, she values persuasion, shorthand, humor, and shiny things. Since 2008, she has served as president of the Board of Instigators for the DC women's spoken word organization mothertongue. Her poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Objet d'Art, and Xenith. In 2010, Evennou was the recipient of a Young Artist Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the winner of the 27th Annual Larry Neal Writer's Award in poetry. Her first chapbook, Queen of Tuesday, was published in 2010.