{"id":4355,"date":"2021-04-06T12:05:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T16:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reviewing\/?page_id=4355"},"modified":"2021-04-06T12:19:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T16:19:09","slug":"o-miami-poetry-fest-reaches-milestone","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reviewing\/?page_id=4355","title":{"rendered":"O, Miami poetry fest reaches milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Posted April 6, 2021<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By CAROLENE KURIEN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every April, poetry appears in Miami-Dade County in the most unsuspecting of places: coat tags, gas station handles, urinals and school buses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some call it magic, some say it\u2019s the ghost of Pablo Neruda himself, but Miami-Dade residents know it\u2019s the work of O, Miami Poetry Festival, an annual, month-long festival in Miami-Dade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The O, Miami Poetry Festival Web site home page.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

O, Miami strives to have every person in Miami-Dade encounter a poem between April 1 and April 30. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This goal is achieved through a variety of creative projects and events, like placing poetry \u201cparking tickets\u201d under windshield wipers or having barbershop patrons read poems out loud in exchange for free haircuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each year of the festival brings something new and exciting, but 2021 is particularly special as it marks O, Miami\u2019s 10th anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P. Scott Cunningham, founder and executive director of O, Miami, reminisced about the festival\u2019s journey over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m still kind of like, in shock by what was accomplished,\u201d said Cunningham. \u201cI\u2019ve definitely had many moments where I\u2019ve realized that it\u2019s bigger than I ever intended it to be, which is another version of saying it doesn\u2019t belong to me anymore, which is the joy of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melody Santiago Cummings, director of Development and Communications at O, Miami, echoed Cunningham\u2019s sentiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of moments that I\u2019m like oh my god, this is incredible. I feel so privileged to be here, let alone have played a role in the creation of this moment,\u201d said Cummings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally, it would be safe to assume that after 10 years, O, Miami would have a huge celebration in honor of its major milestone. But, as Cummings stated, the pandemic has put a damper on any large, celebratory events the festival would have planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you had asked me three years ago, even two years ago, I’d be like \u2018hey, it’s gonna be a blast.\u2019 I would have easily, easily been like \u2018alright, this is my year, I’m gonna get a t-shirt cannon.\u2019 We would have probably done something silly and big,\u201d said Cummings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though there may not be any t-shirt cannons in the works, Cunningham made it clear that there are still exciting events planned for the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such event is called Poems at The Underline<\/a>, where O, Miami partnered with The Underline to display poems written by Miami residents on a large LED screen in downtown Brickell. From April 23-25, Miamians can visit the Sound Stage at The Underline\u2019s Promenade between 8 and 10 p.m. to read their fellow community members\u2019 poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reading of the last issue of Jai-Alai<\/em> Magazine<\/em><\/a>, O, Miami\u2019s literary magazine, is another event that both Cunningham and Cummings expressed their excitement for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cunningham created Jai-Alai<\/em> with the intention that the magazine would \u201cgo extinct\u201d\u2019 after ten issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was originally just like a comment on literary magazines in general \u2014 like, you know, they all die. So, let\u2019s embrace that, let\u2019s not run from it,\u201d said Cunningham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 30 will mark the end of the magazine\u2019s run and will also be O, Miami\u2019s last festival event for the year. The final issue of Jai-Alai<\/em> will feature 31 poems by elementary school children from O, Miami\u2019s partner schools. These poems will be accompanied by an additional 31 poems written by professional poets in response to a specific child\u2019s poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These professionals include prominent poets in the field of contemporary poetry, like Kevin Young, Ross Gay, Lillian Yvonne Bertram, and Jaswinder Bolina, a professor of poetry at the University of Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was so funny \u2018cause when Scott [Cunningham] invited me [to write], there was a line in the email that said, \u2018try not to be dunked on by one of the kids,\u2019 and sure enough, I got this third grader\u2019s poem, and it was so good. It was such a perfect, pithy, little poem. I wrote [Cunningham] back, and I’m like, \u2018I’m getting dunked on,\u2019\u201d said Bolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolina is not the only one who expressed his awe for children\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would 1,000 times, 1,000 times over, rather have youth poets than willingly go to an evening poetry reading with seasoned adults that have maybe like, three books out. Like great, those events have to happen, that matters, and that’s the big world for a lot of people, but the real good stuff to me is the kids and those unexpected encounters,\u201d said Cummings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unexpected encounters with poetry is what O, Miami is all about, as Christell Victoria Roach, a graduate student in poetry at the University of Miami, can attest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roach is a longtime Miami-Dade resident whose writing journey started in high school, the same year as the first O, Miami festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that, especially like, starting out as a writer at the same time as this festival, they really got me into thinking about poetry as more than just an English class,\u201d said Roach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roach especially admires the zip ode, a five-line, original poetry form invented by O, Miami and the public radio station WLRN. The zip ode challenges Miami-Dade residents to write a poem about their zip code, in which the numbers of their zip code determine the number of words in each line of the five-line poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt my school one time, we did the zip code poems. I remember submitting that and that was one of my first publishings,\u201d said Roach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Roach, the zip odes represent O, Miami\u2019s appreciation of all the little pockets of Miami, all the neighborhoods and towns that typically go unnoticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] almost like the whole No Child Left Behind. Like, No Miamian Left Behind-type attitude,\u201d said Roach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo Miamian Left Behind\u201d is an accurate description of O, Miami\u2019s dedication to the Miami-Dade community. In fact, Cummings was brought on board to the O, Miami team eight years ago not because she had a background in poetry or creative writing, but because she had what was arguably an even bigger asset: a knowledge of the Miami community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[My] most prominent skill was that I understood Miami and spoke the language of Miami, and so I think that made me the ideal candidate,\u201d said Cummings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over and over, the O, Miami team reiterates that its intention is not to bring poetry to Miami, but to emphasize the poetry that is already there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to deliver poetry to Miami; it already exists out there. And the festival is really a poetry discovery system, or a way to create a platform for existing poetries to sort of come to the surface,\u201d said Cunningham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allowing poetry to come to the surface is what makes O, Miami\u2019s projects and events approachable. As Bolina stated, there are two worlds of poetry historically: the \u201cacademic, page poetry,\u201d and the \u201cperformance, stage poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bolina, what\u2019s special about O, Miami is that it does not create a competition between the two worlds\u2014it allows poetry to simply exist, without any explanation or division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sort of taken poetry and made it feel like it\u2019s just something that\u2019s a part of your world, you know, like a street sign. And it\u2019s just right,\u201d said Bolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout all of O, Miami\u2019s endeavors, Cunningham wants to make one thing clear: the O, Miami team puts their whole hearts into the creation of the festival and hopes that others can share in their love for poetry and the Miami-Dade community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a lot of joy in making it, and I think that\u2019s the heart of it, is that it\u2019s a joyful experience for us, and that\u2019s what we hope comes across for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Participate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n