Poetry festival to be held in Gainesville this week
National Poetry Month will be celebrated in Alachua County with a four-day poetry festival featuring local and national poets.
ARTSPEAKSgnv will host the 2nd annual Bard & Broadside: North Central Florida Poetry Festival, which will be held Thursday through Sunday at several locations in Gainesville.
All festival events are free and open to the public.
Highlights of the festival include workshops, teen monologues, poetry readings, spoken-word, open mics and more, organizers say.
The theme of the festival this year will be “Homecoming: A Sense of Place.”
ARTSPEAKSgnv was founded in 2012 by E. Stanley Richardson, who has been the Alachua County poet laureate since 2020. Richardson, an accomplished actor, has performed in multiple theatrical performances in his career.
He is also the author of “Hip Hop Is Dead – Long Live Hip Hop: The Birth, Death and Resurrection of Hip Hop Activism” published in 2017.
“Being the county’s poet laureate, it’s important to leave a blueprint and foundation moving forward and making Gainesville, Alachua County and north central Florida the destination for literature and art in the future,” Richardson said.
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This year’s special guest poet, Natalie J. Graham, was the inspiration behind the theme.
Graham, a Gainesville native, is a professor in the African American Studies Department at California State University in Fullerton, California.
Graham, who has a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Florida, is an award-winning author and performer. She has toured nationally with her collection of poems called “Begin with a Failed Body.”
In August 2021, Graham was appointed poet laureate of Orange County in California.
“When it was confirmed that she will be the guest poet and will be coming back home, that inspired the theme to the festival,” Richardson said. “I want to bring poetry and people together. My goal is to make poetry accessible to everyone.”
Below are the list of events:
∙Thursday from 6-9 p.m.: Open Mic Night at Harn Museum of Art, 3259 Hull Road.
∙Friday from 7-9 p.m.: Poetry workshop with local guest poet Jenna Nishida. Nishida will conduct an ekphrastic poetry workshop based on collections at the Matheson History Museum of Alachua County at 513 E. University Ave.
∙Saturday from 1-3 p.m.: “Word Slay: Standing on Words Teen Monologue and Spoken-Word Competition” at the Alachua County Library District Headquarters at 401 E. University Ave.
∙Saturday from 2-4 p.m.: Cancer Awareness Poetry Slam. Spoken-Word poets will use their artistry to bring awareness to cancer specific issues from prevention to survivorship. The event will take place at the Oakview Community Center at 810 NW Eighth Ave.
∙Saturday from 6-10 p.m.: 20 poets will participate in the “Swampberry Jam: North Central Florida Poetry Slam” at the 5 Star Event Center at 534 N. Main St.
∙Sunday from 1-3 p.m.: Poetry workshop with special guest poet Natalie J. Graham at the Alachua County Library District Headquarters at 401 E. University Ave. From 4-5 p.m., Graham will host a poetry reading and book signing.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3vHHHZq.
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: National Poetry Month will be celebrated in Alachua County
