Best Spoken-Word Series

You’d be wise to arrive at the Gemini Tea Emporium early on the last Friday of every month; by 10 p.m., the bright, lovely Gemini spills over like a too-filled teacup. Packing them in is Cafe Nuba, a performance-poetry series that draws the most energetic, passionate and politically infused young writers, lyricists, hip-hop rhymers and straight-up new-school bards. Host Lady Speech conducts the artful mishmash, in which all are invited to read on a first-come, first-slammed basis. Now broadcast on the Boulder-based Free Speech TV network, Cafe Nuba is beaming into screens across the nation; fortunately for Denver, the real thing can be experienced live. Cafe Nuba may just signal the rebirth of cool verse in our town.