Skip to main content
“So we’re all broke right now…Pride Month was crazy,” poet Judy Thorn reads to 60 people crowded under a pergola in the backyard of a Southeast Portland home in early July.
Unlike at your average poetry reading, Thorn has no problem drawing a crowd. The RSVP list for her monthly Bloomers Poetry Club, which pops up at secret locations, had filled up a month before. At the event, the crowd waited in anticipation as she wittily introduced each reader (“you can look up their accolades online”), speaking into a mic stand adorned with roses.
One poet read an erotic satire of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation featuring THC gummies and a threesome with Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault. Another rewrote a series of poems their mother had written at their age.
The event has no explicit theme, but the name—shortened from Late Bloomers—“speaks to periods of transition,” Thorn says. And Thorn, who is trans, regularly features trans writers and artists.
After seeing other writers begging their peers to attend readings and releases, Thorn thought she’d try to make a house party out of her own poetry showcase. “Poetry readings suck,” she says. “Poetry is a humiliation ritual, but at the same time, it’s the only thing I have.”
She takes inspiration from drag performances (“Judy Thorn” started as a stage name that then bled into life offstage) and organizes Bloomers events, frankly, in the image of a party she’d actually like to attend. There’s always wine and catering, and tickets never cost more than $5.
“I’m never going to sell you a T-shirt,” Thorn says. “That’s not authentic to who I am. I don’t like T-shirts.”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2026 here!
