For Immediate Release
Poetry
Organizations from Across the U.S.
Join
Together to Form Historic Coalition
&
Launch March 2017 Programs on Migration
December 6, 2016—Twenty nonprofit poetry organizations from across the
United States have formed a historic coalition dedicated to working together to
promote the value poets bring to our culture and communities, and the important
contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.
With support from Lannan Foundation, the poetry organizations convened
last November in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to begin discussing how they might join
forces to enhance the visibility of the art form and its impact on people’s
everyday lives. Contrary to the public perception that interest in poetry is
waning, over the past few years, these organizations have witnessed increases
in the number of students participating in poetry recitation and spoken word
events, visitors to poetry websites, individuals attending poetry readings, and
young poets taking to social media to share their work.
Now, more than ever, these organizations believe that poetry has a
positive role to play in our country. It is through reading, writing, and
discussing poems that we learn about one another on our most human level, inspiring
empathy, compassion, and greater understanding of one another. Poetry Coalition
members believe that by collaborating on programs, they will spotlight the art
form’s unique ability to spark dialogues, create opportunities to engage in
meaningful conversation, discover unexpected connections with each other, and
inspire new readers.
As its first public offering, throughout the month of March 2017,
Poetry Coalition members will present multiple programs on the theme: Because We Come From Everything: Poetry
& Migration, which borrows a line from U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe
Herrera’s poem, “Borderbus.” Here are
some of the Poetry Coalition members’ March plans:
The Academy of American Poets, which launched National Poetry Month,
will feature a week of poems by contemporary poets from countries that have
endured disaster or conflict in its Poem-a-Day series, which is distributed to
more than 350,000 readers each morning via email, social media, and
syndication.
The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers will engage recent alumni
of their National Student Poets Program to conduct a Tumblr Takeover at
awawards.tumblr.com during March. During the takeover, National Student Poets
will contribute original poems and share others’ poems on the theme of migration.
Highlights from the takeover will be featured on the Alliance’s other social
media channels, activating our network of tens of thousands of young poets to
share, repost, and add to the poetic conversation with the hashtag
#WeComeFromEverything.
Asian American Writers’ Workshop, a national community space and
online magazine publisher, will award fellowships for emerging Muslim American
writers to tell the stories of their communities, conduct front-line events and
publish stories online featuring first and second generation immigrant writers,
and hold Asian-language community arts events in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and
Chinatown, Manhattan.
CantoMundo, a national organization that cultivates a community of
Latina/o poets, and Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University
of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, have jointly invited CantoMundo
poets to write essays or conduct interviews about the theme of Latina/o poetry
and migration, which will be published daily on the Letras Latinas Blog.
Cave Canem Foundation, a national organization committed to
cultivating the artistic and professional growth of black poets of African
descent, will invite its 400-member fellowship to submit original poems on the
topic of migration. Textual and video files will be assembled into an online
anthology, which will be shared on social media and archived on the
organization’s website.
The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival will copresent “The Birds of
May,” at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival, followed by a discussion
with conservationists and a poetry reading. The film documents efforts to save
the endangered Red Knot during its 9,500 mile migration by restoring one of its
few resting and feeding places, along New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore, destroyed
by Hurricane Sandy, and to protect its major food source: the eggs of the
over-fished horseshoe crabs who migrate there each year. Poets, teachers, and
students in attendance will also participate in banding the birds during the
height of their migration and write about their experiences.
Kundiman, a national organization promoting Asian American poets and
writers, will collaborate with Split This Rock and Letras Latinas to host a
joint reading featuring poets Wo Chan and Orlando Ricardo Menes on March 19 at
Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. Kundiman fellows will also participate in
a Migration Postcard Poem Project, for which they will design, write, and mail
postcard poems highlighting the migration theme for their readers, both new and
old, advocates and adversaries. Select poems on the theme of migration will be
featured on the Kundiman website and social media channels.
Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre
Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, is partnering with Notre Dame’s Creative
Writing Program to hold a campus-wide event during the month that will feature students,
faculty, and staff sharing poems around the theme of migration and in support
of their DACA students.
Mass Poetry, which supports poets and poetry in Massachusetts, will
feature poems about migration in its Raining Poetry project. Using a
biodegradable water-repellent spray and stencils made by local artists, the
organization will place poems throughout the streets of Salem. The spray
vanishes once dry, so the poems are invisible—until it rains. Once wet, the
area around the poems will darken, enabling passersby to read them.
The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University will be conducting
the entirety of its March programs under the collective theme, with featured
artists including Whiting Award-winning poet Layli Long Soldier, citizen of the
Oglala Sioux Nation; Iranian-American composer/musician Hafez Modirzadeh in
collaborative performance; and Margaret Randall presenting her newly published
anthology of Cuban poets.
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine and an independent literary organization based in
Chicago, will host a reading in collaboration with Kundiman and Letras Latinas
featuring poets Tarfia Faizullah, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Emmy Pérez, and José B.
González on March 29.
Poets House, a national poetry library and literary center, will
partner with Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty to invite young people to
write poems on the theme of migration and immigration. The organization will
also host a celebration of an anthology of Cuban poetry.
The Poetry Society of America, which launched Poetry in Motion placing
poems in subways and busses, is planning an event at City Lights Bookstore in
San Francisco about the Syrian refugee crisis.
Split This Rock, an organization of poets and social justice activists
based in Washington, D.C, in addition to collaborating with Kundiman and Letras
Latinas to host a joint reading, will also feature poems on the theme in their
Poem of the Week series and promote others published in The Quarry: A Social
Justice Poetry Database on social media.
The University of Arizona Poetry Center in collaboration with the
Poetry and Literature Center of the United States Library of Congress, will
present multiple programs addressing overlaps between poetry and figurative and
literal migration, including issues of translation, the private and public life
of poetry, and poetry’s role in addressing human migration, borders, and
cultural interplay. Programs will include a featured reading with United States
Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and a panel discussion between him and
Arizona Poet Laureate and Academy of American Poets Chancellor Alberto Ríos,
moderated by Poetry and Literature Center Director Rob Casper at the Tucson
Festival of Books.
The Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University will present weekly
programs (broadcasted also online) featuring original poetry and short video
interviews of refugee and immigrant children and adults who have been resettled
in NE Ohio, in partnership with the International Institute of Akron, Project
Learn, Urban Vision, and Akron Public
Schools. With a major grant from the Knight Foundation this project, Traveling Stanzas: Writing Across Borders,
will distribute these poems on posters, designed by KSU Visual Communication
Design students and alumni, and displayed on NE Ohio mass transit, as well as
in videos and greeting cards available on the project website.
Poetry Coalition Members (as of 12/6/16):
Academy of American Poets
Alliance for Young Artists & Writers/National Student Poets
Program
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
CantoMundo
Cave Canem Foundation
Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival
Kundiman
Lambda Literary Foundation
Letras Latinas at Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies
Mass Poetry
O, Miami
Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives at SFSU
Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Project
Poetry Society of America
Poets House
Split This Rock
University of Arizona Poetry Center
Urban Word//National Youth Poet Laureate Program
Wick Poetry Center
###
No comments:
Post a Comment