Founded: May 2022

Co-Hosts: Amanda Ngoho Reavey & Seth Copeland

Location: County Clare Irish Pub, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Our Origins

Tabi Po Poetry began in May 2022 as a labor of love and resistance. Our first featured reader was poet and editor Seth Copeland, who would later become the series’ co-host. What started as an intimate open mic has since evolved into a monthly gathering where new, emerging, and established poets take center stage.

The name “Tabi Po” is a nod to Filipino folklore and identity – an offering to spirits, ancestors, and the stories that walk with us. It is both a warning and a welcome: a reminder that we do not speak alone, that every poem enters a room already haunted. Step gently. Listen deeply. What rises here has roots.

Our Purpose

Amanda Ngoho Reavey created Tabi Po as a response to the gatekeeping that often dominates literary spaces. Her goal is to cultivate a courageous and joyful space where community, craft, and culture meet on equal terms. Many of our featured readers are Milwaukee-based artists, but Reavey and Copeland also welcome guests from across the diaspora. All are invited to speak their truths.

Our Values

Tabi Po is rooted in three core values:

• Kapwa: This is the recognition of a shared identity, an inner self shared with others.

• Pakiramdam: This translates to “shared perception” or “shared inner perception.” It is a sensitivity to or an attunement with others (kapwahan).

• Kagandahang-loob: This guides a person towards authentic acts of goodness and generosity; towards a nurturing that has its origin in genuine empathy.

Support and Community

Tabi Po is run entirely by volunteers and artists. We operate with limited funds, donated space, and deep community care. Whether you’ve attended, read, donated or just spread the word – thank you. You are part of this story, too.

“Tabi tabi po,” we say, to step gently among the unseen. At Tabi Po, we say it to make the unseen seen.

Amanda Ngoho Reavey

Founder & Co-Host

Amanda Reavey is an Emeritus Poetry Fellow at Black Earth Institute and the author of Marilyn (The Operating System, 2015), which won the 2017 Best Book Award in Poetry from the Association for Asian American Studies. Amanda is the Co-Vice President of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She is also a Certified Journal to the Self Facilitator through the Center for Journal Therapy and earned an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University. Currently, Amanda is working on Master of Social Work from Concordia University. Find her publications here.

Seth Copeland

Co-Host

Seth Copeland grew up in southwest Oklahoma and currently lives in Milwaukee. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kestrel, Dream Pop, Yes Poetry, The Shore, South Dakota Review, and Yalobusha Review, among others. Since 2016, he has edited the digital journal petrichor, and is the current managing editor of Cream City Review. He is the Chapbook Coordinator for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

Monica Thomas

Assistant

Monica Thomas is a life-long Wisconsinite of eclectic ancestry who holds dual residency with the Milwaukee and Racine county library systems. Her obsessions include poetry, typewriters, vintage home goods, clay pot cookery, thrift stores, and rummage sales. She also enjoys performance art and recently co-wrote a feature film. As a student of the creative writing program at UW-Milwaukee, she helped re-launch the Furrow Undergraduate Literary Journal and has since contributed to several other publications. She sporadically blogs her dreams, and her poems pop up in eclectic places.