SOME EVENTS

A Selection of some the September 24th, 2011 Events


Of course, there are many, many more to explore on from the sidebar “Event Locations” menu! —>

Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago

ROOTS Therapeutic Poetry special session held at the Youth Training Centre by The Oral Tradition ROOTS Foundation for 100 Thousand Poets for Change 24/09/2011

 


Jalabad City, Afghanistan

Jalalabad Poetry session 100 Thousand Poets of the World

(100 Thousand Poets for Change)

The 24th of September, The Jalal Kot Literary Movement joined with the 100 Thousand Poets of the World, 100 Thousand Poets for Change, international poetry session, mushaira, in Jalalabad City.


In this poetry session 100 poets of the eastern region participated.

The poetry session was arranged in the yard of Nangarhar Media House where The Jalal Kot Literary Movement holds their weekly Friday morning session. To begin the session, Mahmood Khazan recited a few verses of The Holy Quran.

The director of The Jalal Kot Literary Movement, Irshad Raghand, gave an opening speech and welcome the guests.

He expressed his happiness about the gathering and explained that through the efforts of The Jalal Kot Literary Movement we are able to host the 100 Thousand Poets of the World (100 Thousand Poets for Change) poetry session in Nangarhar Province and all around Afghanistan.

Mr Raghand expained that 100,000 Poets for Change is working to bring change to the world and explained the general purpose of the 100 Thousand Poets movement, and told why this movement wants change in the world . Raghand said, as a followers of Islam we want the equanimity of humanity, and also as Afghans poets we want to bring an end to the current crisis in the world.

The director of The Jalal Kot Literary Movement called on all Afghan writers and poets to work toward bringing an end to suicide attacks, and bombings and the many other actions that have caused the killing of Afghan people (Pashtoons), and to demonstrate to the world that Afghans are not terrorists, that they hate war and want a peaceful life, they have suffered many victims, and have seen great suffering and want to see an end to violence.

Then the good poet and writer Hijratullah Ekhtiyar gave some information about the poetry session, mushaira, and said that today the 100,000 Poets of the World (100 Thousand Poets for Change) has organized in over 500 cities, and they are many poets reading poems to bring about an end to the current crisis situation in the world.

He also explained how he was introduced to 100 Thousand Poets for Change through facebook, and met with the American creator of the 100 Thousand Poets poetry session, and spoke about how 100 Thousand Poets for Change created a website that highlights Afghanistan as an especially significant participant, so therefore we must attempt to inaugurate this poetry session in Nangarhar Province to give a good representation of the Afghans, specifically for the (Pashtoons). Ekhtiyar promised that he will translate some poems from this session from Pashto to English and then publish it in the 100 Thousand Poets website.

After Ekhtiyar, the new director of Nangarhar Media House, Abdul Baseer Sabawoon, gave a short speech, and praised the effort of Jalal Kot Literary Movement and said that the Nangarhar Media House will continue their cooperation with Movement.

       

Good poet and writer Saied Abudullah Nezami  from Kunar Province and journalist Abdul Moeed Hashimi from Laghaman gave a short speech at the session then an independent poetry session began and Rahimullah Armani, Shereen Agha Jahanger, Najibullah Naeel, Tahir Safi, Sadullah Jan Fitrat, Faried Nawakht, Merwais Rahmani, Mahmood Khazan,Yahya Semaez, Janan Zamaray, Afkar Mujrib, Aymal Khan Ghoyur, Hijratullah Ektiyar, Ferooz Khamosh, Nadir Danish, Ahmad Jamal Jamal, Khoshal Dorani, Anwarullhaq Yarghal, Sabir Shah Safi, Fasihullah Armani, Allah Muhommad Hasanzai, Akmal Zahir Muhibullah Allayar, Said Muhmood Wakman, Sefatullah Hedayat, Abudl Moeed Hashimi, Said Abudullah Nezami, Irshad Raghand, Serat, Dost Mohammod Dost, Seimuddin Pasarly, Omaid Khan Yar, Farhadullah Hasib, and many others poets and writers participated in that session.

Most poems of the session were focused on the current war in Afghanistan and many poets were calling for permanent peace in Afghanistan.

At the end of poetry session the professor of the Nangarhar University and the reporter of Radio Azadi in the eastern zone, Ostad Dawood Wafa, was invited to give a summary and evaluation of this session. He praised this event and many others efforts of Jalal Kot Literary Movement. He said that this poetry session was very good, in quality and quantity, and he added that Jalal Kot Literary Movement is the only foundation which has a regular literary session in the eastern region. This ended the poetry session.

It is important to note that the poetry session was broadcast live by two local radio stations (Hamisha bahar) and (Nan) beside that stations Shamshad TV, Afghan News, Nangarhar National TV, Radio Azadi, Inikas Radio, Khabaryal website and Nanani Afghanistan website has also published the report of session on that day.

Not to forget that Jalal Kot Literary Movement has two important poetry session one at the Kama District of Nanagarhar  and the second one was about (Eid al-Fitr) before that session. Not including special sessions The Jalal Kot Literary Movement has done 50 weekly sessions.

In a few days this movement will complete its first year and the members of the movement plan to meet and plan for next year with intentions of expanding its areas of activities.

The secret of success of the The Jalal Kot Literary Movement is that its members have a good alliance with one and another and they benefit from the facilities the of Nangarhar Media House and from the good work and assistance of Khalid Sangar, Director of The Jalal Kot Literary Movement.


LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA

 

In Rockbridge county, VA, we held some artistic ‘flash-mobs’–a confluence of words, music, art performances, and took it to various and ‘unlikely’ spaces in our community forum (the library, recycling center, jailhouse, courthouse steps, coffee shop, Wal*mart, sporting field, to name a few) staged, filmed and photographed to get the message out to the streets–that need the the inspiration of poetry and meaning to shake up the mundane, apathetic, and predictable in our lives.

 

Flash performance of William Carlos Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow at the Kroger


KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

Work for Change is a piece that emerged in response to Big Bridge editor Michael Rothenberg’s organization of a global poetry performance event–scheduled for September 24, 2011–centered simply & elegantly, if somewhat enigmatically, upon the encouragement for a commitment to change in the practice of our daily lives as members of a shared & collective humanity– perhaps as entities belonging to that collectivity of life & universe itself.

I found a number of discoveries were made possible by such a framing of commonality & mutual interests among the designation of what are for me at least three highly charged nouns: work, change, & poet. Now, I will make my way slowly towards this first term– work– since, in fact, Rothenberg never actually enlists it– though its immanent presence w/in the construct of the event I think would be rather difficult to refute or deny.

Composition & creation still lie lurking in our contemporary definition & understanding of poesis– however estranged from its primordial etymology we may be, however constrained w/in the socioeconomic entailments of its current production & distribution we might be. “Poetry,” as Tristan Tzara wrote “is made in the mouth”– & yet still finds itself most fully realized w/in the global manufacture of commodity under capitalism upon the pages of books composed of the skin & flesh of dead trees– even still bound occasionally w/ glues & covers taken from the hooves & hides of lives not quite so different from our own as we might wish or dare to imagine.
Though we who are poets may sing of life, to be sure, the traces & leavings of our work, however noble in abstraction & idealization of thought, stink of death in the actuality of material existence. These things too, fetishized as the Argentinian butcher’s fresh meat, or fruits from the hemisphere in which the summer season is not yet through, arrive in stores carried in trucks & trains, or overseas in cargo planes which peel ozone from the sky. Although the “immaterial filters” of electronic publication may absolve us of some degree of responsibility for destruction, decomposition, & indiscriminate waste, once our works are bought & sold– whether by means of corporate advertising or more localized trade– in that instant in which a single word from any one of our greatest works touches any increment of monetary ex-change– we have surely & inevitably spilled blood once again. Thus we, as poets, have much work to do w/in our own current means of production & creation which fit this criteria of a need for challenge & change. Change, to borrow from Tzara once again, begins in one’s own house… read more


PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

We will focus our event on freeing Tibet and the plight of the Tibetan people.Featuring Techung, a renowned Tibetan musician who has opened for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Also, Sherap Wangmo, and Michel Tyabi will be performing their music at the event.

Poetry by influential Tibetan poets Tsoltim N. Shakabpa, Tenzin Tsundue, Tsering Dhompa, Jigme Dorjee DAGYAP, and Woeser will be read at the event. Los Angeles Friends of Tibet will also be at the event distributing information to raise awareness.

We are happy to provide moral support for the Tibetan community around the world and inside of Tibet through the event.


MUMBAI, INDIA

First, on September 23, 2011, there will be a workshop for Adivasi children at the Bandanwadi school near Tara village close to Panvel, Raigad district, Maharashtra, where Adivasi poems/songs in Marathi will be explained and sung.

Second, on September 24, there will be a multilingual poetry reading hosted by the Culture Beat, Mumbai Press Club, which will include peace music, and participation by poets writing in English, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Sindhi and other Indian languages.

MADHUSUDAN KUMAR

There will also be a film screening, organized by Rafique Baghdadi, and an Open Mike session, where Mumbaikars may present their poems related to the themes of peace and sustainability.

Anju Makhija, who has been working with Adivasi children in the Panvel area for many years, says: “These tribes, also called kathkaris, are losing their culture. They usually live in the hilly areas close to nature. Traditionally, they earn a living by cutting trees from nearby jungles and selling the wood to timber merchants. In recent times, they have been working as farm labourers and construction workers. Many of them live below the poverty line and have problems with alcoholism. They are not easily accepted by the mainstream culture and are isolated in many ways. Their children have now started going to local schools, but these Adivasis are fast losing their songs.”

Anju Makhija (left) and Menka Shivdasani at a Culture Beat poetry reading by US-based Saleem Peeradina (centre)

While the workshop takes place between 11 a.m and 1 p.m. onSeptember 23, follow-up efforts will involve encouraging the children to collect more poems from their elders.

Mumbaikars are invited to send in their poems, artworks or any other relevant material on the themes of peace and sustainability.

Write in to Menka Shivdasani and Anju Makhija at poetsinmumbai@gmail.com


READING, PENNSYLVANIA

Reading “Murder City,” Pennsylvania, is being transformed into a “Community Through Unity” with poetry, hip hop, music and dance.

Craig Czury, a community organizer and Berks County Poet Laureate actively deployed his Gulag writers to become involved. Cindi Abribat, community activist in the workshop envisioned a larger event to include local musicians and street performers. Along with Mindy Cohen of Albright College radio WXAC, and Brad Nofia Waples of the Reading Hip Hop Summit, Abribat and Czury relentlessly approached the mayor’s office and city council for all the appropriate permissions.

Craig Czury

“Change is already taken place by winning over the attitudes of Reading City Council and City Hall, who are allowing this event to happen in center city on the streets,” said Czury.

 

http://www.iartreading.org
Stage 1

11:00am – 11:15am Intro
11:15am – 11:30am 3 poets Craig Czury, Glady Toth, Lisa DeVuono
11:30am -12:15pm Band Rhythm road
12:15pm – 12:30pm 3 Poets Marilyn Hazelton, Elizabeth Stanley,
12:30pm – 12:45pm Artist Matt Bailey
12:45 pm – 1:30 pm Band Uncle Jam
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Band Drawn Legend
2:00 pm -2:15 pm 3 Poets Heather Thomas, Marian Frances Wolbers, Michael Hendrick
2:15 pm -2:45 pm Artist Spring Valley Church
2:45 pm -3:15pm Band Persesus Gross
3:15 pm – 3:45 pm Artist Genesius Theatre
3:45pm – 4:30 pm Band You, You Dark Forest
4:30 pm – 4:45 pm Artist James Andrew Curtis
4:45 pm – 5:00 pm 3 Poets We are world Wide
5:00 pm – 5:45 pm Band Echoes Talk Back
5:45 pm – 6:00 pm Artist Berto
6:00 pm – 6:15 pm Artist Ekko
6:15 pm – 7:00 pm Band Atlantic Avenue

Stage 2

11:15 am – 11:30 am 3 Poets
11:30 am – 11:45 am Artist Allie Bell
11:45 am – 12:00 am Artist Kathryn Ott
12:00 pm – 12:30 pm Artist Karen Palcho
12:30 pm – 12:45 pm Dance Daniel Egusquiza
12:45 pm – 1:00 pm 3 poets Awilda Ivette Castro Suarez, Lee Levine
1:00 pm – 1:15 pm Artist Dice
1:15 pm – 1:30 pm Artist Ghetto MC
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Artist Bynee & B’Jorn
2:00 pm – 2:15 pm Dance Dance Wars
2:45pm – 3:00 pm 3 Poets Juan Egedeme Franqui, Willis Allen, Noah Ayala
3:00 pm -3:15 pm Dance Kinetic X
3:15 pm – 3:30 pm Artist J-Fly
3:30 pm – 3:45 pm Artist Young Vishis
3:45 pm – 4:00 pm Artist Deja Ellison
4:00 pm – 4:15 pm Dance Dramatic Influence
4:15 pm -4:30 pm 3 Poets Ron Williams, Anne Burke, Tamara Oakman
4:30 pm – 4:45 pm Artist The Chosen 1’s
4:45 pm -5:00 pm Dance RHS Dance Team
5:00 pm -5:15 pm Artist Specialist
5:00 pm -5:15 pm Artist J Rock
5:15 pm – 5:30 pm Artist Lady K
5:30 pm- 5:45 pm Artist Sasha Lynn Lopez
5:45 pm – 6:00 pm 3 Poets
6:00 pm -6:30 pm Dj Latin DanceSession
6:30 pm – 7:00 pm Dj Open Dance Session

Stage 3

11:15 am – 11:30 am 3 Poets
11:30 am – 12:00 pm Artist Michael Francis Wright
12:00 pm – 12:15 pm Artist Robert Hassler
12:15 pm -12:30 pm Artist Shane Sayers-Couzyn
12:30 pm – 1:00 pm Band The Looks of It
1:00 pm – 1:15 pm 3 Poets Michael Francis Wright, Shane Sayers-Couzyn, Flora Natalini
1:15 pm -1:45 pm Band Portrait of Solace
1:45 pm – 2:00 pm Artist Cluster B w/ Faye Miller’s Mistress
2:00 pm – 2:15 pm Artist Inka
2:15 pm – 2:45 pm Band The Capsized
2:45 pm – 3:15 pm Artist Alex Brubaker
3:15 pm – 3:30 pm 3 Poets Angie Knott, Jacquelyn Valenci, John Judge
3:30 pm – 3:45 pm Artist Sinatti Pop
3:45 pm – 4:00 PM Artist Dave Vegas
4:00 pm – 4:15 pm Artist Eddie Kane
4:15 pm – 4:30 pm Artist Yung Cass
4:30 pm – 5:15 pm Band Dad Fight
5:15 PM – 5:30 pm 3 poets Francis E. Morrison, Ann E. Michael, Lester Hirsh
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm Artist Dennis “Two Shoes” Schwartz
5:45 pm – 6:15 pm Band Flux Capicator
6:15 pm – 6:30 pm 3 Poets
6:30 pm – 7:00 pm Jam Session “impromptu jam session with attending musicians”


LOS ANGELES, CA

Yvonne de la Vega

All in all, because we as poets fight the Good Fight, the Los Angeles Poet is one that uniquely bonds to his fellow poet and there is love, honor and camaraderie between us.

LA POETS UNITE!
 

We know one another personally, and have known each other for decades. We help each other with the organization of events and support each other without having to be on the bill. We support one another for the love and sake of the Spoken Word. This is just one of the beautiful things about being a Los Angeles Poet.

In Los Angeles, each Organizer will host a one and a half hour poetry reading. –We will host our readings back to back from 11:00 am to midnight. – There will be four booked bands featured before each quarter of our Event.

Click here to view complete Festival Schedule


VENICE, ITALY (1 of 4 Events in italy)


Michael McClure and Louise Landes Levy, as well as 15 other international poets, will be reading in Venice, Italy for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, 9:00am – 11:30pm, Ca’Tron – S.Stae Venezia

 

 

Created By Alessandro Burbank, Ca Tron Città Aperta, John Gian.


 

100 Thousand Poets for Change Albuquerque, NM

Slam for Change! Wednesday, September 21
7 pm to 10 pm

In partnership with the 100 Thousand Poets for Change project, ABQ Slams will be hosting a special slam for change at Winning Coffee Company (111 Harvard SE). Featuring Marc Marcel as a special guest poet. Competitors are asked to bring at least one poem for competition addressing an area where they feel change is needed.

Living Game Board Demonstration Friday, September 23rd
6 pm to 7 pm

We will be gathering at the Civic Plaza to create a massive chessboard, and filling it with poets and performers. These poets will read poetry in response to the issues and causes that they specifically want to see sustainable change happen for. We will be creating the visual metaphor of the ways in which legislation is passed without our vote, without our consent and in some cases without our knowledge.

Acequia Book Sellers
10:20 am to 5 pm

Acequia Booksellers is hosting an OPEN HOUSE/DROP-IN event highlighting recordings of songwriters, musicians and speakers for social change from the 1930’s on. The event will take place during bookstore hours (10:30-5:00) on Sat. Sept. 24. The impromptu program will include recordings by singers such as Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie and U. Utah Phillips, as well as speakers like Noam Chomsky. Acequia Booksellers has the best poetry section in New Mexico. Drop by and check us out.

24 Hour Drum Circle
10 am to 10

Drummmers from all walks will join us in creating a non-stop 24 hour drum circle with the Kosmic Trading Post acting as the heart and the drums creating the pulse, the vibrant resonance that reminds us that as long as life goes on, positive growth and sustainable change are possible.

Workshops
10 am to 5 pm

Poets will partner with members of various social change organizations and non-profit groups with a mission to create change in the world. Workshops will be held at the Projects. Presenters from the organizations will speak to the specific challenges and the needs and poets will lead writing prompts in response to these issues, creating a new social dialogue and bringing necessary knowledge to the table.

Candlelight Reading
7 to 9 pm

Poets and musicians will come together for a free concert, bringing together the community in a night of powerful verse and uplifting, conscious music. Presenters from non-profit and social change organizations will speak briefly, offering insight into the struggles, knowledge and hope. After the readings, everyone in attendance will be asked to hold up a candle for a moment of silence in reflection of all the bright lights we’ve lost to wars, genocide, homelessness, violence, drug addiction and more. The causes and issues are many, but so are the hearts and hopes of those who will join us for this event!

Tewa Women United Gathering for Mother Earth Reading

The Tewa Women United will include a reading around the sacred fire as part of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change project.


 

NORTH CAROLINA  STATE-WIDE ACTIONS!

 

In North Carolina we’re using the Subtitle, Writers for Education. Our state just cut 13,000 teacher positions because the Republican-dominated legislature didn’t want to extend a 3/4 of 1 percent sales tax. The UNC School of the Arts barely escaped closure due to the mandated 15% cut to the university system. The NC Arts Council has had to reduce programming and staff. To show our support for the arts in general, and writing in particular, we are offering a series of workshops and readings throughout the state.

RALEIGH- Renowned poet Betty Adcock (Slantwise, LSU Press) will be sitting on the sidewalk outside Quail Ridge Books from 11 – 1 offering free feedback on any poems people wish to bring by.She will be joined by Richard Krawiec (She Hands me the Razor, Press 53) and Tim McBride (The Manageable Cold, Triquarterly Books). Richard Krawiec will be teaching a free workshop – Where are you? Where are you going? – to the Raleigh Divorced Women’s Support Group, led by Caroline Huerta. Dorianne Laux (The Book of Men, W.W. Morrow) is going to involve her students in emailing poems to NC politicians who voted to cut spending for the arts.

3 Events 12 HOURS OF POETRY IN GREENSBORO

10am-12noon Poetry “Write In for Change”
Central Library 219 N Church St Greensboro, NC 27401 336-373-3617

Members of the New Garden Friends Poetry Group will guide writers of all levels in writing and reviewing poems in the Booklovers Coffee Shop.

A public reading will begin about 11:30am.

Poet and fiction writer Valerie Nieman, who publishes with Press 53, will teach a workshop for children. It takes place from 1-4 at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, and is called Peeking Behind the Mask –Each day we go about our routine lives, but inside we are superheroes or explorers, pirates or rock stars, hiding our secret identities behind a mask of an unassuming face and daily clothes. With the backdrop of Weatherspoon’s current exhibition, “Persona: A Body in Parts,” we’ll explore our own secret identities and “peek behind the mask” of famous folks (real or fictional) to imagine their thoughts and lives. One way to enter this secret world is to write a persona poem – persona meaning mask – in which we give a voice to that alternate identity. Join poet and novelist Valerie Nieman in the Weatherspoon lobby for a drop-in poetry experience for all ages. In addition, use a variety of materials to create your own magnificent mask to wear. At 3:00 pm we’ll celebrate with live improvisational jazz and a spoken word sharing.

Rhythms of Words
Social Awareness

Tate Street Coffee House
6 to 10 PM Free!

Poets/Spoken Word Artist: Choose an issue you feel strongly about and speak on it
Musicians /Singers:( no band with larger than 3 members) let your music speak for change
Storytellers: Create images through story for change
Comedians: Add to your gift of to bring laughter as a healing median for change

Open Mic element intertwined throughout program

Press 53, in WINSTON-SALEM, is going to ‘stock’ the tables at Wolfie’s on 4th Street with poems. So all the customers will have an assortment of poems to pursue as they down their Wolfie’s frozen custard and Krankie’s coffee

COLUMBIA– Here’s a bit of an unmapped activity. Gail Peck, a Charlotte poet, is driving to the beach on the 24th and plans to stop at one of her favorite restaurants, Tuscan Bio in Columbia, NC, along the way and see if she can read a poem to the kitchen staff. Then, at the beach, she’s going to read a poem to the marshland.

In CARRBORO- Maura High, a member of the Black Sox poetry group, will be gathering other guerilla poets, taking to the streets, stores, and cafes to give away poetry books, and also leave poems, homemade and dada, on unattended chairs throughout the city.

Beth Browne lives in rural CLAYTON, surrounded by farmland. She writes, “I’m thinking I’ll do something radical like put The Red Wheelbarrow on yard signs and post them along my road like the old shaving cream ads.”

CULLOWEHEE– In keeping with the North Carolina ‘theme’ of getting as much poetry out into the community as possible, former NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer (Southern Fictions, Jacar Press, Coming to Rest, Black Shawl, Catching Light – all from LSU Press) will be be passing out poems to the hundreds of attendees at the Mt. Heritage day at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer, who publishes with LSU (and whose limited edition handmade book of sonnets (complete with a Confederate battle flag pulped into the cover paper), Southern Fictions, Jacar Press released, is going to organize an event in SYLVA.

Michael Beadle will be strolling Main St., WAYNESVILLE reading poems!

In the TRIANGLE AREA of North Carolina, Alice Osborn (Unfinished Projects) will be leading a flash mob that intends to visit as many coffee shops in the area as they can hit.

CHARLOTTEBarbara Conrad has organized an open poetry reading and music at Atherton Farmers Market Saturday 9:30-11:30. Thanks Larry Sorkin. Tanja Bechtler, Richard Taylor and all poets!

In CHAPEL HILL- Paul Jones (ibiblio.org) is going to organize a program to tweet 100,000 poems (hopefully) on Sept. 24. Everyone can join in on that.

Grey Brown (What it Takes), and Stephanie Levin (Smoke of Her Body, Jacar Press) will be at Flyleaf Books from 11 – 1, sitting on the sidewalk to offer free feedback to all poets, children or adults, who wish to bring a poem by.

From Appalachian State University in BOONE- Joseph Bathanti (Land of Amnesia, Press 53) and Kathryn Kirkpatrick (Unaccountable Weather, Press 53 – out in Sept.) are co-organizing a program we’d like to encourage everyone to participate in. On Sept. 24 we will be encouraging all NC poets and poetry lovers to email poems to NC’s elected representatives. We are going to try to flood the email boxes with poetry. This is an activity everyone can participate in locally, and it only takes a few minutes. No haranguing, no pontificating, just email a poem. Or two or ten. Putting poetry into the inboxes of politicians, hopefully in such numbers they can’t ignore it.

DURHAM event is at The Regulator, Ninth Street, Durham. Get feedback on your poems, and have a poem written for you.
On Saturday Sept 24 from 11 – 1. Al Maginnes(Ghost Alphabet, White Pines Press) and Florence Nash (Crossing Water, Fish Music) will be available to offer feedback on their poems for all aspiring poets and poetry lovers – children or adults. Chris Vitiello (Irresponsibility, Ahsahta Press) will be dressed as the Poetry Fox, sitting at a card table with his typewriter to make custom poems on the spot for anyone.

ALSO, Fleur de Lisa, the award-winning (Best Original Song, Harmony Sweeps, D.C. 2009) women’s vocal group who write all original music using poetry as lyrics, will be doing a mini-flash mob on Sept. 24 as part of the 100,000 Poets for Change event. They will be showing up at various locations in the DURHAM area, including shelters for people and animal.http://www.facebook.com/l/jAQA5ZS5-AQAWEuqYZeKC-ixRGhMcq3O_eu5K-qp527C_1Q/www.haikusongs.com

 

 

In HICKORY- poet Scott Owens will have a dozen or more poets “reading in the round” at Minetta Lane Center for Arts and Peace in downtown Hickory from 2:00 to 4:00. Participants include Bill Griffin, Tim Peeler, Rand Brandes, Tony Ricciardelli, Bud Caywood, and many more. Anyone who is interested should contact Scott at asowens1@yahoo.com or 828-234-4266.

Steve Roberts (Another Word for Home), Addy McCulllough, and others will take to the streets of WILMINGTON and write poems on the sidewalks in chalk.

Hillsborough Health Center, HILLSBOROUGH, on Sept. 24 at 3pm Debra Kaufman (The Next Moment, Jacar Press) will lead a free workshop on Write to Health.

ASHEVILLE- Laura Hope-Gill of the Wordfest Festival will hold an event, details TBA.
www.ashevillewordfest.org.


NAGOYA, JAPAN (1 of 2 Events in Japan)

Local poets and first-time poets, poets, Japanese EFL students and native (and non-native) English speakers will gather for a morning ginko (haiku walk).

We’ll begin at Osu Kannon temple in Nagoya, spend two hours strolling through the neighborhood and adjacent Shopping Arcades as the market comes to life. We will proceed for a ten-minute walk to the next subway station, Kamimaezu, and hold a haiku-writing workshop at Mondo Books.

There will be a reading of everyone’s poems and a vote for audience favorites.

We hope to post live footage of the workshop and reading via an on-site webcam. A mix of cultures and languages, poetry and a celebration of whatever the haiku genre means to all of us.

P.S. The event is not for children due to Japanese privacy laws (against publication of children’s photos), as well as that a quiet atmosphere will be encouraged. Contact: imaike2005@yahoo.com

VOLOS, GREECE (1 of 4 Events in Greece)

Volos - Magnesia map

In Volos, Greece, there will be a stage set on the promenade by the bay, next to the Statue of Liberty. (It has no specific name, it’s just “the Volos promenade”) There will be a colourful mix of poetic readings, and music about change by prominent band “MOUSIKOI IXNILATES” (and there will also be a new amateur band of fresh musicians and singers shaped for the purposes of the event). There will also be poetry dramatized by theatrical teams, there willbe videos, photos and images projected on a screen around the stage with messages against corruption and oppression in the world.

Volos Statue of Liberty

 

 

(There will be speakers, for now the teams are working onsubjects, but they haven’t still decided who of them will read each team’s poems.. I will know in almost two weeks.. I’m gonna be a speaker, Xanthos Vlahos also, Tatiana Iliopoulou, but I still have no other names to give for sure until we choose the proper ones from the teams) It will be a powerful, wild gust of the fresh wind of change.


BOWERY POETRY CLUB, NYC, NY (1 of 6 Events in NYC)


A major poets recite-thaton, and several neo-surrealists from East Village will
participate in it with “Jazzoetry for Imagination” poetry reading organized by Valery Oisteanu, with David St.Lascaux, Ilka Scobie, Max Blagg,Tom Walker, Steve Dalachinsky, Jeff Wright, Shelley Miller and many others at the Bowery Poetry Club 1.30-3.30pm that day.

 

 

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

The Louisville event will be a poetic & musical extravaganza featuring local writers and musicians such as Makalani Bandele, Katarina Stoykova-Klemer, Kate Welsh, Sonja Devries, Sheri Wright and Shadwick Wilde. 7 to 10 pm at LA CASITA CENTER, 230 Woodbine Street in Old Louisville, KY

 

 

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA (1 of 9 Events in Canada)

Photo by Suzanne Rushton

Vancouver, BC: Poets and the community will clean up the banks of False Creek East, which has medical waste and other dangerous litter strewn about it and whose sediments include elevated PCB’s, PAHs, and heavy metals, dangerous to any fish or people in the water. The local Fraser Riverkeeper will address the sampling they’ve done and concerns about the water body. That afternoon is a poetry reading at the Carnegie Center on Main & Hastings, which will include half a dozen readers from Christine Leclerc’s enpipe line project, a collaboration of poems, which if laid end-to-end would surpass the kilometers of the proposed Northern Gateway’s twin pipelines that would extend to and from Bruderheim, Alberta and Kitimat, British Columbia. Already the existing tar sands is an unhealthy (for people, wildlife, land, and water) mining production that transports oil to the US. The proposed pipelines would enable a new Asian oil transport, and introduce large crude oil tankers to the delicate Great Bear Rainforest coast of BC as well as having pipelines cross more than 1,000 salmon streams and rivers in in northern BC. Our message from Vancouver is to work toward a healthy watershed, to ensure wild salmon forever, to resist further tar sands projects, and to say no to tankers on our coast. Many people are involved in this project, including Mary Woodbury of Moon Willow Press and Fraser Riverkeeper, Rita Wong, Christine Leclerc, Word on the Street Vancouver, and half a dozen enpipe line poets. Also participating in the beach cleanup are students from Farleigh Dickinson University. After our reading, there will be collaborative workshops at the Carnegie Center as well as an open-mic reading that evening.

Contact me if you are around the area and want to get involved: woodbury.mary@gmail.com.

 

 

MEXICO CITY (6 of 12 Events in Mexico)

1.The collective Contra la Violencia, el arte (Against Violence, Art), is organizing a route through some of thepedestrian streets in Downtown Mexico City. Together with poets and performance artists, the group will be distributing written poems with links to information for citizens interested in change and awareness; poetry and other actions of the sort will be performed along the circuit. This event will be coordinated with another collective action which will be held globally in the same date “Alto al Ecocidio” (“Stop Ecocide!”); in Mexico City, this action is organized by Tzikbal Coop.

2.The collective El Color de la Letra (The Color of the Letter will held a Festival of Music and Poetry, featuring Hip Hop battles in Tlahuac (East side of the city).

3.The collective PoesíaYTrayecto (Poetry And Journey) will be screening the documentary short: “El poeta es un revólver en medio del dolor del mundo”  (“The Poet is a Gun in the midst ot the World’s Pain”), in 3 different public spaces in the city, TBA.

4.Intervention of Oral Poetic Texts: live transmission and documentation of the activities throughout one month before September 24, through Skype and Youtube. Participants from other states (Jalisco, Zacatecas, Chiapas, Baja California Norte, and Chihuahua have confirmed). Organized by poet Edwing Roldán Ortiz.

5.Workshop: “Give Voice to your Emotions”, at the Museo de la Mujer (The Woman’s Museum). República de Bolivia #17, Centro Histórico. Tel. 5795-9425. Offered by Mónica Maldonado Yáñez.

6.Open Mic: at the Tzikbal Coop, that same evening. Organized by Contra la violencia, el arte and Cooperativa Tzikbal.

7. Twitter Action POETUITS

8. Convocatoria: Poemas sobre Violencia Sexual en los Espacios Públicos

9. Tuits Callejeros

10. Poetry Reading at La Bota

11. Poetry Bus / Autobús Poético

LIMERICK, IRELAND (1 of 7 Events in Ireland)

The Whitehouse Bar, 52 O’Connell Street, Limerick, Ireland.

The Whitehouse Poets are looking forward to participating in the 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE Global Event on Sept.24th 2011.We will organize our event in The Whitehouse Bar Limerick which has been home of the Whitehouse Poets for 8 years with 401consecutive Open Mic Sessions.

BOGOTA, COLUMBIA (1 of 4 Events in Colombia)

Meeting No.1 100 Mil Artistas por El Cambio The group that met did an analysis of the event to occur on September 24, 2011, came to an agreements on how to proceed, and made some decisions including one to organize some external events before the date, to be included as part of the same September 24th initiative. Groups of 2 organizers were created to take charge of the proposed activities.

Meeting No.4 Organizers begin "Weaving Change"- a tapestry of old clothes with written messages of peace

1) THE WRITTEN WORD  (Poetry)

2.) MUSIC and SOUNDS

3.) FILM

4.) DANCE

5.) POETIC ACTIONS (Performance)

These activities will occur in different locations according to the organizers, respectively they will inform on all event details and new meetings will be organized to discuss the development in each group. Remember that our theme is peace, justice and the environment; these three things reaffirm our life as it is. Contributions that can be made by members of this group are important and valuable. Let’s remember that this event is one of solidarity. Aso let’s remember that on the 24th of September there will be a massive pacifist demonstration at some location TBA soon. This demonstration will occur with all the previously mentioned groups, and with artists of other groups, that want to participate. On this date, there will also be a blood drive, so those who are willing and able can donate, remembering that giving blood also generates life.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA (1 of 23 Events in California)

“WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED”

Organizers:  Red Slider, Bob Stanley (Sacramento Poetry Center)

An effort to print and distribute a “We Will Not Be Silenced” banner to all 100TPC organizers which they may display at their local events.  The Banner will include the slogan “We Will Not Be Silenced” and a list of names of those poets and artists around the world who are imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for the act of speaking out.  At the present time we are searching for funds from corporations and foundations to underwrite the costs of printing and shipping.  Organizers can help at this time by sending us the names and places of any of their poets, artists or performers from their area who are being persecuted  or otherwise silenced by their governments.


OMAHA, NEBRASKA (1 of 3 Events)

hello all you wonderful people, george the scruffy river rat from platte river rain here in omaha nebraska. as many of you are no doubt aware, we narrowly avoided having a “low level” nuclear waste dump placed in a sensitive wetland area, are currently battling transcanada’s planned keystone xl tarsands pipeline, slated to run right through the sandhills, upper niobrara river valley, ogallala aquifer, some of the most pristene areas left in the midwest. we are a predominantly republican state, and as such, we have our work cut out for us in so many areas. but we have spirit. and we have growing numbers of awakening sleepers, and the positive energy this event will create can only wake more 🙂 our event will take place in a recently restored wetland area, and we hope to include music, as well as poetry, and some guest speakers from local environmental groups. our local media is mostly on the right, but we expect some live local tv, we’ll be videotaping as much of the day as possible, webcasting live, most likely in yahoo. if the rumored skype conference app works out.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON (1 of 6 Events in Washington State)

Cedar Sigo

We’ll celebrate this planet-wide event at SPLAB, an intergenerational spokenwordperformance, resource and outreach center in Seattle, with no less than ten hours of poetry featuring Suquamish native Cedar Sigo in his return to Seattle. Stalwarts of the Seattle literary community, Judith Roche, Carolyne Wright, Frances McCue, Jourdan Keith, Larry Matsuda, Carletta Carrington Wilson, Eugenia Toledo and others will be featured reading work that seeks to instill peace, sustainability, justice and mercy in a world desperately in need of all that at this critical time in history. The event starts at 11:30AM on 9.24.11.

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

Cafe S.O.U.L. will be hosting a venue to promote change on September 24, 2011. As part of the 100 Thou sand Poets For Change: A Global movement; we will have numerous local artist with prominent voices that expose the need for change. Moreover, an art exhibition, “400 Years of Silence:Afrocentricity”, by Simone Spruce-Torres will take part in this call for change.

Cafe S.O.U.L. anticipates to open minds, ears and hearts; will you join the movement? Café S.O.U.L. is a positive alternative to clubs and bars. Based on Christian principles, but is open to everyone, bringing people of various walks of life together through ART – spoken word/poetry, hip hop, neo soul, jazz, dance, and  clean comedy. FREE light refreshments served. Age 17 and older.

 

 

SHEBOYGAN, WISCONSIN (1 of 3 Events in Wisconsin)

Our state poet laureate, Bruce Dethlefsen, will read at Mead Public Library at 10 a.m. We will then transport him to Bookworm Gardens, a children’s garden dedicated to literature, for a “Family Poetry Slam.” Then, we head to Paradigm Coffee and Music for a high schoolers’ writing workshop, led by Green Bay poet, Chuck Rybak, and then an afternoon and evening of open mic poetry and music with Skype links worldwide (I hope. Anyone want to “skype-in” to Sheboygan? Let me know and we can start working on it. Obvious Dog (a musical duo featuring Bruce and Bill Orth) will be joined by Cathryn Cofell for an integrated music and poetry experience.
Let’s hook up the entire world!
Read here.
my post about 100 TCP on The Best American Poetry blog .

 

 

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK (1 of 17 Events in the state of New York)

Rochester’s event for 100 Thousand Poets for Change

We will focus on hunger and homelessnes. Poets and musicians will cook a community dinner for anyone who comes to the Flying Squirrel Community Space…and we will have poetry and music into the night!

Donations will help fund this monthly dinner held on Clarissa St.

 

 

ROME, ITALY(1 of 4 Events in Italy)

Tiziana Colusso

FORMAFLUENS-International Literary Magazine (www.formafluens.net) , directed by the writer and poet Tiziana Colusso (www.tizianacolusso.it) will promote a meeting/reading of one-hundred Italian and foreign poets on a wonderful plain-air location in Rome. The event will be posted as a video and the texts will be published on FORMAFLUENS.NET. All the poets passing through Rome in 24th of September are invited to participate.

 


KERALA, INDIA (1 of 22 Events in India!)

AHOY! Our place called Kerala is brimming with all sorts of poetic activities. We could well assume that there are already tens of thousands of poets, up and about. Anyway a change is always welcome. Hence we intend to mark the day 24/9/2011 as FREE VERSE DAY!  Free VERSE from all restrictions, inhibitions and all. Of course art and literature do help a lot. And it is the poetry in stuff that enlightens the humankind/ mind.


Participating cities and countries on the world map!


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