Teen poets from Cambridge’s Buckingham Browne & Nichols private school and Somerville’s Books of Hope have earned two of 16 semifinals slots at the sixth annual Louder Than A Bomb Massachusetts Youth Poetry Slam Festival.

At the Louder Than A Bomb youth poetry slam preliminaries this weekend in Boston, Cambridge’s team from the Buckingham Browne & Nichols private school has a not-so-secret weapon: Athena Chu, who competed as an individual last year.

In addition to using April – which is National Poetry Month – to judge entries in the second city Sidewalk Poetry Contest, the Cambridge Arts Council is celebrating by hosting its first community open mic April 11.

There’s a lot that’s new with the young poets of Louder than a Bomb and the Massachusetts Literary Education and Performance Collective, but it all starts Wednesday with free chocolate and cocktails.

Cuban poet Emma Romeu reads for free Friday from her latest book of poems, “Ahora Que Me Deja Un Minuto La Vida” (“Now That Life’s Given Me a Minute”), joined by her translator, Michael L. Glenn.

Poets, alert! If you lament your arts’ tendency toward the transitory, Cambridge’s Sidewalk Poetry Program can get your words stamped into freshly poured sidewalk and last for a generation.

The poems of Diana Whitney slink into the arms of critics like diagrammable Marilyn Monroes, and critics melt and respond like all they can think of is how quickly they can get those poems into bed with them.

Led by poet, author and host K.D. Smith, there’s a half-dozen poets scheduled to take to the stage Saturday in Central Square.

You’re forgiven for not remembering John Cooper Clarke – he hasn’t been here since the late 1970s – but not for ignoring his return Wednesday.

A combined National Poetry Month and Senior Citizen Month brings poetry reading and writing workshops led by poet populist Lo Galluccio.