Every April for the past 11 years, chances are that somewhere around Miami you’ve encountered a poem in an unusual place – on a receipt at the gas pump, on a produce sticker or even on a vintage gumball machine.
That was the O, Miami Poetry Festival in action, with founder and executive artistic director P. Scott Cunningham and the O, Miami team working to fulfill the mission of having everyone in Miami-Dade County experience poetry throughout April.
And why in April? Because it’s National Poetry Month.
“This is the 11th festival, and there are so many people who have cared about it and helped it grow,” said Cunningham. “I’ve been really lucky to meet people that feel as passionate about the mission as we do. It takes so many people to produce this event for just one year, much less 11 years.”
The festival encompasses site-specific events, community gatherings and yes, those poetry in public places projects, all amounting to a very hyperlocal event that focuses entirely on the living-in-Miami experience.
Across the last decade, O, Miami’s full-time staff has tripled to keep up with the growing number of collaborations, informed by the foundation’s work as well as its education program “which started with us going into schools in 2016 and grew to become its own entity two years ago,” said Cunningham.
(Courtesy of Michelle Lisa Polissaint)
“Finally Skin was 2” by Michelle Lisa Polissaint
The education program is by far the fastest-growing component of the festival, so much so that O, Miami has added a second full-time staffer to support it. The organization is at capacity, which indicates there’s a need for what it’s offering.
“We’re bringing a cost-free program to schools, and teachers and administrators know there’s a gap there and realize there’s a need,” said Cunningham.
In February, O, Miami unveiled “Chain Letters” at Morningside K-8 Academy, a new project designed to amplify voices in the community and inspire children to embrace poetry through wrapping the school’s chain-link fence with oversized poetry, written mostly by seventh grade students. The exhibition will be on display throughout April.
(Gesi Schilling)
This vintage gumball machine was part of the Zip Odes initiative at O, Miami Poetry Festival.
Equally as important to the education program are O, Miami’s collaborations with local artists. Returning this year with a site-specific installation is Michelle Lisa Polissaint, who several years ago created an umbrella initiative featured throughout the Miami Design District during that year’s festival.
This year she returns with an interactive project at Legion Park ,where the public is encouraged to bring a piece of fabric or other material that holds special meaning; Polissaint will be there stitching poems onto what she’s handed. She plans to bring along vintage napkins and other objects for those who come to enjoy the project without any material.
“For this project I wanted to pull from the O, Miami archives but do something kind of simple, so I’ll be choosing approximately 15 poems to stitch on the fabric,” she said. “Over time it will become this living piece of art.”
The poems will be chosen from past Zip Odes projects as well as from elementary school kids’ poems created during O, Miami’s Sunroom Project, “because I love the projects they do with youth and their youth engagement,” said Polissaint. “I wanted to be able to incorporate the kids’ kindness and sweetness.”
The stitched words will be in English, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole, created over several weekends in April at the park.
The Zip Odes project is “always an audience favorite where we invite the public to write poems about their ZIP codes,” said Cunningham.
(Gesi Schilling)
The 2019 umbrella initiative by Michelle Lisa Polissaint and Najja Moon, was inspired by a short proverb in Creole, roughly translated as, "A leaky roof can fool the sun but cannot fool the rain."
The five-line poems will again be featured online and with approximately 10 chosen each week, culminating in a reveal April 27.
“The authors will be invited to read them online on the 27th. We started this initiative in 2015 and since then usually average around 1,500 to 3,000 submissions each year,” he said.
A few other highlights this year include “Everyone’s an Island: Hidden History Tour of the Venetian Islands” by Jason Katz, author of the Islandia Journal zine.
“Jason proposed this site-specific event where he’ll conduct a tour of the Islands and showcase their history,” said Cunningham.
Local artist Najja Moon also brings her “Portrait 34” project to this year’s event, a project inspired by her cousin, who recently passed away at 34 years old.
“Najja proposed people submit poems specific to their age. It’ll be in a photo booth where you put in your age and it prints out a photo with a poem about that number,” said Cunningham. “The poems wer
(Courtesy of Michelle Lisa Polissaint)
“Little White Rectangles” by Michelle Lisa Polissaint, an example of work she’ll produce at this year’s O, Miami Poetry Festival.
e written by people around the country who answered our national call for submissions.”
Outside of the April event, O, Miami publishes two books a year and a few zines, something the organization is always doing and expanding upon as well.
“Everything we’re doing this year is outdoors or it’s in an intimate setting, and we even still have online events,” said Cunningham, who added that ultimately, the festival is “all about getting people back together again. That is my hope.”
Visit OMiami.org for the full schedule of events around the city and online.