Sunday

Vend N’ Speak Summer Pop-Up fundraiser from 1 to 4 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free, but donations are strongly encouraged. Samantha Benoit of Mumu’s Pikliz – the Haitian condiment of pickled cabbage, carrots and peppers – presents spoken-word performances and music by DJ Bizz while visitors shop the wares of fellow local vendors. Information is here.

Poet Patricia Smith reads Sunday in West Cambridge. (Photo: Patricia Smith)

Poet Patricia Smith reads from 3 to 4 p.m. at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge. Free. The New England Poetry Club presents the Golden Rose Poetry Award – one of America’s oldest literary prizes – to Smith, author of eight books of poetry including 2017’s “Incendiary Art” and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam. Information is here.

Monday

Patio Project: Light & Shadow from 5 to 6 p.m. at the Cambridge Library Valente Branch, 826 Cambridge St., Wellington-Harrington. Free. The plan is to harness the power of the sun to create art, making sun prints and shadow boxes. Information is here. 

The city’s Sidewalk Poetry program has a reception and reading on Monday. (Photo: Cambridge Arts via Facebook)

Sidewalk Poetry reception and reading from 6 to 8 p.m. at Gallery 344, on the second floor of the City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free. Each spring the Sidewalk Poetry project invites residents to submit works to be stamped into concrete as streets are repaved. This reception invites in winners and runners-up for a reading, displays the “TRA•VERSE” exhibition by Rick Rawlins and video by Carl Tremblay that marked Year Five (and was shut down by the coronavirus pandemic just one day after unveiling in 2020), and offers ice cream to sample and poems to take home. Information is here.

Elisa Albert reads from “Human Blues: A Novel” at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square. Free. The novel – “told over the course of nine menstrual cycles” – looks at the cultural obsession with childbearing through the story of a singer-songwriter who releases an album and has to deal with the fame that follows. Albert will be in conversation with Isabel Kaplan, author of “NSFW: A Novel.” Well-fitting masks are required. Information is here.

Tuesday

Danehy Park Concert Series from 6 to 8 p.m. at Danehy Park, 99 Sherman St., in Neighborhood 9 just east of Fresh Pond. Free. The Imani-Hall Quartet of Zak King, Jett Tachibana, Richie Smith and Ayan performs through a partnership of Cambridge Recreation and Club Passim focusing on folk and jazz. Information is here.

Author Isaac Fitzgerald. (Photo: Remi Morawski)

Isaac Fitzgerald reads from “Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional” at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square. Free. In this memoir, Fitzgerald goes from growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco and smuggling medical supplies into Burma – revealing himself in a way that explains his frequent guest stints on “The Today Show” (though being author of works on tattoos and the bestselling children’s book “How to Be a Pirate” helps). He’ll be in discussion with Scaachi Koul, a senior culture writer at BuzzFeed News and the author of “One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter.” Well-fitting masks are required. Information is here.

First and Last Word Poetry from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at The Center for Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. Tickets are $4. This series founded in 2010 happens the third Tuesday of every month with hosts Harris Gardner and Gloria Mindock. Readers have yet to be announced; there’s always an open mic at the end. Information is here. 

Wednesday

Family Game Night from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Library O’Neill Branch, 70 Rindge Ave., North Cambridge. Free. Play your family or meet new friends over board games and puzzles supplied by the library at this all-ages event. Information is here.

Screen on the Green showing of “Space Jam: A New Legacy” from 7:15 to 9:30 p.m. at Rindge Field, 105 Pemberton St., North Cambridge. Free. This city-sponsored event travels from park to park over the summer showing popular films – in this case, last year’s “Space Jam” reboot that subs in LeBron James for the original’s Michael Jordan. Reviewer Tom Meek called it “a totally unnecessary updating” with some “fun, quirky Easter eggs” adults can look for throughout. But who cares, so long as the kids are happy on another hot summer night? Information is here.

Thursday

Couch’s Tema Siegel. (Photo: Couch via Facebook)

CX Summer Nights outdoor concert from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at The Common at CX, 320 Morgan Ave., North Point. Free. The bands Other Than Boston, influenced by jazz, funk, hip-hop, world music and blues, and Couch, pop fused with funk, R&B, jazz and rock influences, are the main attractions, but there will also be local brews, food trucks, lawn games and opportunities to support the nonprofit community at this monthly family and pet-friendly series. Information is here.

Taymour Soomro and Meng Jin read in conversation with Gish Jen at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square. Free. Soomro brings the novel “Other Names for Love,” exploring masculinity, inheritance and desire in Pakistan, and Jin the short-story collection “Self-Portrait with a Ghost,” which considers what it means to live in an age of heightened self-consciousness with seemingly endless access to knowledge but little actual power. Well-fitting masks are required. Information is here.

“Suite Talk” dance at 7:30 p.m. at Complex@Canal, 650 E. Kendall St., Kendall Square. General admission is $20 with a $2.85 fee. The choreography explores vulnerability, empathy and overcoming fear to look at a world beyond racism. The feature-length work, done with the Beheard.world collective, is followed by a facilitated discussion. Information is here.

Friday

Theater by Hortense Gerardo is part of The Asian American Playwright Collective Playfest 5. (Photo: Tom Epperson)

The Asian American Playwright Collective Playfest 5 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free. Area Asian American and Asian Pacific Islander playwrights, directors, actors and others come together to premiere theater by Michelle M. Aguillon, Christina R. Chan, Hortense Gerardo, Greg Lam, Michael Lin, Vivian Liu-Somers, Nico Pang, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro and George S. Yip. Michelle M. Aguillon, Kai Chao and Alison Yuemin Qu direct. It continues Saturday. Information is here. 

Eighth Annual Salsa Squared from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday on Brattle Plaza, Harvard Square. Free. Take a dance lesson from Jennifer Earls and salsa the night away to Latin tunes from DJ D. Martinez, while enjoying chips and the other kind of salsa from El Jefe’s Taqueria and cold beer in the Wusong Road al fresco Tiki beer garden. Information is here. 

Saturday

Family Fun Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon at Longfellow House and the Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., West Cambridge. Free. This kid- and family-focused event (which takes place every week) starts with story time with a ranger, includes a tour of the historic house and always has some kind of interactive activity toward the end. Information is here.

Old Powder House tours from 10 a.m. to noon at Nathan Tufts/Powderhouse Park, College Avenue and Broadway, Somerville. You may have passed by the powder house hundreds of times over the years, but the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission offers a chance to get inside and hear a historic narrative of the site. Information is here.

“Joe the Salamander” launch reading at 4 p.m. at The Center for Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville. Free. Timothy Gager, who ran the monthly Dire Literary Series for 18 years before wrapping it up in October 2018, returns with a novel that sends an autistic child into the catastrophe of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (If that sounds like a bummer, rest assured that autism expert Carol Gillis calls the novel “uplifting and heartfelt.”) Gager will be in conversation with Doug Holder of the Ibbetson Street Press, with special guests Charles Coe and Ploughshares founder Dewitt Henry. Information is here.

The Asian American Playwright Collective Playfest 5 continues from 5 to 7 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free. Information is here.

Sunday

A scene from “Yellow Bird Chase.” (Photo: Liars & Believers)

“Yellow Bird Chase” from 1 to 3 p.m. at Starlight Square, 84 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Free. A clownish maintenance crew finds a magical bird, leading to a mad chase over land and sea and through the air in battles with pirates and monsters in this imaginative, family-friendly theater piece by the Liars & Believers troupe. Information is here. (Update on July 22, 2022: This performance was canceled due to expected extreme heat.)