You can't swing a microphone cable around South Sound's spoken-word poetry scene without hitting William Kupinse. Now the poet, Tacoma's first Poet Laureate and associate professor of English at University of Puget Sound, is teaming up with composer Greg Youtz, professor of music at Pacific Lutheran University, in the performance Poetry Above the Roar: Erin Calata Sings Songs of Gregory Youtzin the Mary Baker Russell Music Building at Pacific Lutheran University. Calata, mezzo-soprano and 2008 alumna of PLU, will sing a cycle of 10 pieces of music composed by Youtz, with words from Kupinse's collection of poems Fallow (2009, Exquisite Disarray). The words should, er, sing. {WV}

POETRY ABOVE THE ROAR, 8 p.m., Mary Baker Russell Music Building, Room 306, Pacific Lutheran University, 12180 Park Ave S, Tacoma, free admission, 253.535.7151

LINK: Listen to two of the poem-songs