Poetry + Punchlines
Living Arts of Tulsa
March 29, 2025
While comedy and poetry aren’t mutually exclusive art forms—especially in Tulsa’s genre-neutral art scene—the combination offered fresh and interesting intersections with a surprising amount of bite at Living Arts’ Poetry + Punchlines, hosted by poet Zhenya Yevtushenko and comedian Evan Hughes. Comedy (we hope) is typically funny and poetry is usually seen as dramatic, emotional, sometimes angry, sometimes sad. But both explore the wide range of human emotions and experiences—such as, on this evening, poems that made us laugh and jokes that brought us close to tears.
The show’s ticket sales benefited Art4orms, a local non-profit dedicated to providing artistic opportunities to public school students in Tulsa, specifically Black, brown, and low-income students. Art4orms notes on their website that these students are statistically more likely to lose arts funding in their schools. At a time when grants and arts organizations are being eliminated and other avenues of access and funding are in jeopardy, the Tulsa art scene and the artists within it continue to support each other and the wider community.
The blank white walls I encountered upon entering the gallery could have been metaphorical—Hughes pointed out their potential, joking “Walls can be art. Bricks can be art. Light can be art!”—or just a sign that Living Arts was between exhibits. I’d never attended an event in the space that wasn’t surrounded by visual art; without it, the gallery returned to its original warehouse state, with empty walls, exposed ducts hanging from the rafters, large empty rooms broken up by concrete support beams, and a highly visible industrial HVAC system that didn’t seem to be turned on or functioning on this humid, steamy evening.
The stage setup was equally sparse: a set of risers pushed together, a single microphone stand downstage center, and a thick black curtain hung behind the stage. Downstage right, local musician Maguire played ambient keyboard music as folks entered the space. Typically, this would have been time to explore the current exhibit. Without art on the walls, the audience milled about awkwardly for about 45 minutes before the show began, chatting amongst ourselves or sitting quietly, allowing the keys to settle us into a calm, reflective state for the remainder of the evening.
Host Evan Hughes (L) and comedian Rema Calm | photos by Quinn Carver Johnson
While the event itself wasn’t political, current events and social issues made their way into the show as the performers—poets Vee, Mariah Gonzalez, and Alf, and comedians Lacee Rains, Rema Calm, and Shanique—discussed immigration, occupation, healthcare, mental health, addiction, the economy, and more. Queer and feminist issues were common topics across a lineup of mostly women and non-binary folks, and Calm told several poignant jokes about the ways healthcare (access, affordability, quality of treatment, etc.) differed between men and women. Calm and Gonzalez both used their platforms to advocate for a free Palestine.
Evergreen (but no less knotty) subjects like religion, sex, and love made an appearance, too: comedians Rains and Calm discussed their respective Catholic and Jewish upbringings, and poet Gonzalez read several poems with the motif of Mother Mary, including an especially scathing poem about death and love in the middle of her set. Gonzalez also shared a romantic, mildly humorous, and starkly anti-capitalist acrostic poem about Luigi Mangione, which the crowd thoroughly enjoyed.
Blending two different genres together into one show can result in awkwardness as well as alliance. The crowd for this poetry/comedy collaboration was lively, but perhaps more comfortable with the poetry portions of the show, which asked for attentive, sometimes meditative listening. They clapped and laughed, but only sporadically, and were often silent for very funny jokes from all of the comedians performing, leading to the comics having to pivot away from strong material.
Poetry ended the night, with Alf (who leads the monthly Poetry for Thee poetry swap and open mic at Noise Town) reading alongside Maguire’s musical accompaniment. Alf’s poetry has a natural rhythm, heightened by his heavy use of rhyme and wordplay. Maguire’s keys complemented and magnified that musicality, taking a backseat to the poetry but rising in volume and intensity, matching Alf’s voice as he read.
Alf’s final poem used Wile E. Coyote as a metaphor for mental health, heart-wrenchingly twisting the comical image of the cartoon coyote plummeting off the side of a cliff into a frank discussion about suicidal ideation. By the end of the poem, he’d guided the audience to the hope he found. He concluded his set with a quote from Ursula K. LeGuin and a reminder that, as artists, we were “part of the resistance.”
The hosts and organizers of Poetry + Punchlines promised an evening of entertainment for a good cause, but the performers brought that and more, addressing the pressing political issues of the day, skewering the nonsense of our news cycle, and creating solidarity along the way. They also told a lot of dirty jokes. At the end of the night, the crowd lingered and chatted up the poets and comedians as Maguire played them home: always a sign of a good show.
