Category Archives: Kansas City, Kansas

Kansas City, Kansas

Contact: Fred Whitehead

P. O. Box 5224
Kansas City, KS 66119

Phone: (913) 342-6379

www.100TPC.org

www.wpm2011.org
fredwh@swbell.net

Additional contact, Christina Pacosz: pacosz@earthlink.net

 

100 Thousand Poets for Change Organizes the Largest Poetry Event in History

The local Kansas City, Kansas event will be at the John Brown Statue, at 27th & Sewell in Kansas City, Kansas, at 1 P.M., Saturday, September 24. All are welcome. Those who wish to read please contact Fred Whitehead in advance if possible; in the interest of providing everyone a chance to be heard, please keep the reading limited to one or two poems.

As the venue is a street corner, people should bring their own folding chairs, etc. At the dedication of the statue in 1911, several thousand people attended, and the site has frequently served for historical and cultural events since that time. There are two nearby community museums which focus on the history of the Quindaro area, and these may be open for visits.

Directions: On I-635, north of I-70, take the Leavenworth Road exit, go east to 27th, then north over the highway, to the corner of Sewell. In case of rain, the event will take place in the stone roofed overlook at the north end of 27th St.

Poets in 400 cities representing 95 countries are currently organizing the largest poetry reading in history with over 500 individual events scheduled to take place simultaneously on September 24th to promote environmental, social, and political change.

Poets, writers, artists, and humanitarians will create, perform, educate and demonstrate, in their individual communities, and decide their own specific area of focus for change within the overall framework of peace and sustainability, which founder Michael Rothenberg stated, “…is a major concern worldwide and the guiding principle for this global event.”

Events range from poetry and peace gatherings in strife-torn Kabul and Jalalabad to 20 collective poetic actions in Mexico City where poets, painters, filmmakers and musicians will spread the word of peace and non-violence throughout the city with day long readings and workshops. Poetry demonstrations are being organized in political hotspots such as Cairo, Egypt and Madison, Wisconsin. There are 20 events in North Carolina where poets have mobilized and will be conducting poetry workshops and readings, and will send poems to their elected officials in a campaign to support education funding. And along the Platte River near Omaha, Nebraska, poets will be demonstrating against TransCanada’s planned Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

More examples of events can be easily accessed on the home page of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change website at www.100TPC.org. Each city organizer and their community has an individual Event Location blog page on the website for posting written material, poetry, artwork, photos, and video to document this global mega-event across national borders.

Immediately following September 24th all documentation on the 100TPC.org website will be preserved by Stanford University in California, which has recognized 100 Thousand Poets for Change as an historical event, the largest poetry reading in history. They will archive the complete contents of the website, 100TPC.org, as part of their digital archiving program LOCKSS.

Share this!
Posted in Kansas City, Kansas | Leave a comment