Paradiso featuring poets Hamish Ballantyne and Joe Stapleton

Poetry reading series comes to Shadowbox!

Paradiso, a reading and performance series that pairs innovative out-of-town writers with talent from North Carolina’s research triangle area, makes its Shadowbox debut. Founded in 2018 out of Nightlight Bar and Club, Paradiso is co-curated by poets Marta Núñez Pouzols and Laura Jaramillo.

Hamish Ballantyne is a poet and translator based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples peoples (Vancouver, Canada). He works in the Downtown Eastside and as a commercial mushroom picker. He has published two chapbooks, Imitation Crab (Knife/Fork/Book, 2020) and Blue Knight (Auric Press, 2022) and published his first full-length Tomorrow is a Holiday (New Star) in 2024.

Joe Stapleton is a high school English teacher in Durham, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife, Kelsea, and their two children, Rose and Will.

Doors 4 pm, reading at 4:30 pm. BYO or sample what’s on hand.