Palm Beach Poetry Festival Invites Local Poets And Poetry Lovers To Nine Literary Events This Fall

The Palm Beach Poetry Festival's Director Susan R. Williamson and Dr. Blaise Allen, Director of Community Outreach, today invited local poets and poetry fans to nine upcoming literary events this fall:

September 26 - 7 pm (Thursday)

Sita Sings the Blues

Movie Screening

The Jaffe Center for Book Arts

Black Box Theater

Florida Atlantic University's Wimberly Library - 3rd floor east

777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, 33431

$10

In collaboration with the Jaffee Center for Book Arts and their current exhibition, Building Stories: Alternative Storytelling, the Palm Beach Poetry Festival is screening the film, Sita Sings the Blues, an animated romantic comedy, and musical interpretation of the Hindu epic poem The Ramayana. This story focuses on the relationship between Sita and Rama, who are gods incarnated as human beings, and even they can't make their marriage work. The film is set to the rarely heard 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told." (86-minutes)

Note: Admissions will be donated to support the work of producer/director Nina Paley.

September 28 - 3:30 pm (Saturday)

100,000 Musicians, Artists, and Poets for Change

American Rocks Bar and Grill

1600 East Hillsboro Blvd. in Deerfield Beach

FREE

The public is invited to participate in what could be the largest poetry reading in history. The Palm Beach Poetry Festival is hosting this 10th annual open-mic event in partnership with 100 Thousand Poets for Change. This global happening will be taking place at the same time in over 1,000 venues in 120 countries. Poets will read and perform work to promote social, political, environmental sustainability, and change, simultaneously across the planet. Attendees are welcome to read their own work or favorite poems by other poets. Between poetry readings, special guest musicians will play songs for peace. Attendees are welcome to play or sing along. Artists can set up a tabletop or easel to show and sell a painting or photograph (limit of one per person). As in previous years, the event will be facilitated and photographed by Dr. Allen, and archived by Stanford University. Must be 21 years old to attend.

October 5 - 1 pm (Saturday)

The Wonder of Poetry

A Poetry Workshop Facilitated by Guillermo Cancio-Bello

This workshop will focus on reading examples of poetry that convey a strong sense of wonder about the world. Through generative writing exercises, participants will use a tool box of poetic devices: images, syntax, tone, rhyming, repetition, form, etc. to find their own wondrous moments in their poems. This workshop aims to explore how we use poetry as a vehicle of meaning and self-discovery.

+ Facilitator Guillermo Cancio-Bello is a poet and psychotherapist living in Miami. He has an MS in Counseling from Barry University, and is a director of The November Institute.

Old School Square Crest Theatre

51 N. Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach

561-243-7922

$10 per person

October 17 - 1 pm (Thursday)

Bards of a Feather

Open-Mic Round Robin Poetry Reading

Participants should bring up to four poems, original or not, to share with the group. Nonpoets are welcome.

Hagen Ranch Library Meeting Room

14350 Hagen Ranch Road in Delray Beach

561-894-7000

FREE

November 2 - 1 pm (Saturday)

With Nothing to Regret, Nothing to Wish Reversed

A Poetry Workshop Facilitated by Staci Kiner

With Nothing to Regret, Nothing to Wish Reversed, as Walt Whitman beseeched, it is time to pay homage to lights that still shine-from John Donne to Elizabeth Bishop, James Wright to Anne Sexton, the 17th Century through the 20th; let's leave Auden's The Age of Anxiety at the door-and sing the body electric.

Old School Square Crest Theatre

51 N. Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach

561-243-7922

$10 per person

November 9 - 1 pm (Saturday)

Improvisational Acting for Poets & Writers

A Workshop with Anthony Francis

In this workshop, participants will practice introductory group improvisational acting exercises and play fun games to increase creativity, boost self-confidence for public speaking, reading, and performance. No previous acting experience necessary. Guaranteed fun with a lot of laughs.

+ Facilitator Anthony Francis is CEO and Director of Improv U. Inc. and The Annual Improv Festival (held September 5-8 at Old School Square.

Old School Square Crest Theatre

51 N. Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach

561-243-7922

$15 per person

December 7 - 1 pm (Saturday)

Playing the Shell Game: Hermit Crab Poetry

A Poetry Workshop Facilitated by Julie Marie Wade

There's a long tradition of poets (and prose writers too) borrowing forms from other disciplines as containers for their content. In the late 1990s, Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola coined the term "hermit crab writing," assigning a memorable metaphor to adopted-forms literature. Just as the hermit crab survives by occupying abandoned shells it finds on the beach, writers can rely on extant "shells" like dictionary entries, instruction manuals, rejection letters, tarot card readings, and many more to carry their content to a wider readership. This workshop will explore the possibilities of hermit crab writing with compelling examples and opportunities to write in response.

+ Facilitator Julie Marie Wade teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami. She has published 10 collections of poetry and prose, most recently Same-Sexy Marriage: A Novella in Poems and The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose, co-authored with Denise Duhamel. A recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir and grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Wade reviews regularly for Lambda Literary Review and The Rumpus.

Old School Square Crest Theatre

51 N. Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach

561-243-7922

$10 per person

December 12 - 1 pm (Thursday)

Bards of a Feather

Open-Mic Round Robin Poetry Reading

Participants should bring up to four poems, original or not, to share with the group. Nonpoets are welcome.

Hagen Ranch Library Meeting Room

14350 Hagen Ranch Road in Delray Beach

561-894-7000

FREE

January 9, 2020 - 11 am (Thursday)

12th Annual Haiku U

A Poetry Workshop Facilitated by Yaddyra Peralta

In this workshop, participants will learn the basics of the Japanese literary form of senryu, the lighthearted cousin of haiku. Consisting of three lines of approximately 17 syllables, the senryu focuses on humans and human emotions, the good and the bad, from a humorous perspective. Following the workshop, in which participants will learn about the history of the senryu and haiku, they will examine and discuss various examples before touring the Morikami's beautiful gardens to generate their own senryu.

+ Facilitator Yaddyra Peralta, MFA, is the former Assistant Director of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival and an Associate Editor at Mango Publishing. She has taught writing at Miami Dade College, Homestead Correctional Institution, and for O, Miami's Sunroom project. Her work has appeared in Miami Rail, Ploughshares, Tigertail, Hinchas de Poesia, Eight Miami Poets, and The Miami Herald.

Morikami Gardens and Museum Theatre

4000 Morikami Park Road in Delray Beach

FREE to attend, but participants will have to pay admission to the Morikami Museum and Gardens

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