Events and Programs
Sunday Kind of Love—3rd Sunday Every Month at Busboys and Poets
5-7 PM in the Langston Room at Busboys and Poets 14th & V location. $5 cover.
The first hour features readings by local poets. The second hour is an open mike — bring one of your own poems to read! Hosted by Sarah Browning and Katy Richey. Sponsored by DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, Busboys and Poets, and Split This Rock. Busboys and Poets also lists Sunday Kind of Love on its events page. $5 admission; donations encouraged and are split between the featured poets and Busboys' amazing wait staff.
Poem of the Week
Poem of the Week sends one poem per week on a social issue to a wide audience: Split This Rock's list serv and Facebook group (reaching more than 3,000 recipients nationwide), and the national and international networks of the Institute for Policy Studies. We also post the poem on BlogThisRock. Join us on Facebook or sign up for our email list. We invite you to share the poems, always including the publication credit and festival information listed after each poem.
Poets in the (Think) Tank
Split This Rock collaborates with the Institute for Policy Studies on an occasional basis to bring poets and social justice advocates together in the "think tank." These brown bag events are free and open to the public—bring your lunch! Sign up for our email list or find Split This Rock on Facebook to hear about upcoming events.
Letter-Writing Campaign: More Poetry in Major Newspapers' Book Reviews!
If you live in the Washington, DC, area or read The Washington Post, please write a letter to the editor urging more reviews of poetry. We hope to swamp the Post with scores of letters demonstrating the wide audience for poetry among its readership. Use our Sample Letter to the Post or write your own.
If you live outside the area, write a similar letter to the book review section of your local newspaper (even better, launch a local campaign!). Together, we can make this a national campaign to increase coverage of poetry books in book reviews of major newspapers and begin to restore poetry’s place as a major genre of literature in this country.
For inspiration and more details, read our flyer and check out some of Split This Rock's favorite sites for book reviews. Please let us know what response you receive. Contact Yvette Neisser Moreno for more information.
UPDATES:
On March 3, 2011, the DC Examiner published an article on the campaign, including an interview with Sarah Browning, Split This Rock's director. And on July 30, Split 2012 Festival Planning Committee member and poet Yvette Neisser Moreno had her letter, "Why no poetry in Book World Special?" published in The Washington Post. Check Blog This Rock for more.
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Past Events and Action
Louder Than a Bomb: February 24 at The Dunes
Benevolent Media presents Louder Than a Bomb, a fundraiser party to benefit Split This Rock and the DC Youth Slam Team in Washington, D.C. Join us at The Dunes for a special evening featuring live performances by D.C.’s best and brightest young poets. Funds raised will help stage the first-ever Louder Than A Bomb High School Poetry Slam Festival in the District in June 2012.
Buy tickets on Eventbrite and RSVP on Facebook. More details on the DC Youth Slam Team page.
Voices Out Loud—Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Date: Wednesday February 1, 2012
Time: 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Sponsored by: Split This Rock and The Leadership Conference Education Fund
RSVP soon—space is limited: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/215760
The Leadership Conference Education Fund and Split This Rock iInvite you to celebrate the centenary of Bayard Rustin, unsung prophet of the civil rights movement. Featuring:
- Video clips from Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer’s Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin and Singer’s new film, Electoral Dysfunction
- Insights from Walter Naegle, Executive Director of the Bayard Rustin Fund and Rustin’s surviving life partner, and Wade Henderson, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference Education Fund
- Spoken word from nationally known poets Chris August, Regie Cabico, and Twain Dooley
- Multimedia from the Gandhi Brigade Youth Media Collective
- Plus other special guests
Where: National Museum for Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC
For more info, contact David at rustinevent@civilrights.org
July 7, 2011 - Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here -- Opening Reception and Reading
with Jinahie, plus poets Sarah Browning, Tina Darragh, and Zein El-Amine
Thursday July 7, 2011 -- 6-8 p.m.Gallery 31, The Corcoran Gallery of Art
500 17th St NW Washington DC
Co-Sponsored by Split This Rock, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Insitute for Policy Studies
On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad, the historic center of the Baghdad literary, cultural, and intellectual community. With the intention of showing the Iraqi Arts Community that our collective cultural voice cannot and will not be silenced, and representing the 30 people killed and 100 injured, 130 broadsides have been created. "This is our starting point: where language, thought, and reality reside: where memory, ideas, and even dreams wait patiently in their black ink." The broadsides are traveling the world to various venues highlighting the project and raising funds for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. Details here.
July 6, 2011 - Poets in the (Think)Tank -- Forbidden: Poetry as a Bridge between Iran and America
Please join us for a reading and talk by Sholeh Wolpé -- July 6, 12-2 p.m. -- at The Institute for Policy Studies, 1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC
Cosponsored by Split This Rock and Foreign Policy in Focus/The Institute for Policy Studies
Sholeh Wolpé is the author of Rooftops of Tehran, The Scar Saloon, and Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad, for which she was awarded the Lois Roth Translation Prize in 2010. She is the regional editor of Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East (Norton), the guest editor of Atlanta Review (2010 Iran issue) and the poetry editor of the Levantine Review, an online journal about the Middle East. Sholeh is also the editor of Forbidden: Poems from Iran and its Exiles (MSU, 2012). Born in Iran, she presently lives in Los Angeles.
February 27, 2011 – Split This Rock Showcase as part of INTERSECTIONS: A New America Arts Festival
We're very pleased to present a Split This Rock Showcase as part of INTERSECTIONS: A New America Arts Festival at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street, NE, on Sunday, February 27, 4:30 pm. Just $5.
Featured: Sami Miranda, Sonya Renee Taylor, Jonathan B. Tucker, and Split This Rock Director Sarah Browning. A true diversity of DC's poets! The performance will be sign-language interpreted by Quest Theater.
Join popular poets Sarah Browning, Jonathan B. Tucker, Samuel Miranda, and Sonya Renee Taylor, for a reading that speaks to the power of poetry in our public life. Dedicated to splitting open the injustices in society, giving voice to the voiceless, naming the unnamable, and reaching across differences to imagine a better world. Witness the diversity and complexity of the human experience, captured in these four powerful voices and feel the call to action.
$5, age 16+.
Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NW, Washington DC. Find tickets and the full festival schedule at www.intersectionsdc.org
Poets & Writers Call for an End to War
On February 3, 2011, we gathered in front of the White House to call for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The demonstration included 16 minutes of silence, one minute for each year of the current wars in both countries. We then read, in unison, from the poetry of Muriel Rukeyser and Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail. Watch footage of the demonstration on PressTV.
Split This Rock thanks all who joined with us for this moving, powerful event, especially the Institute for Policy Studies, the Washington Peace Center, AWP participants, and co-organizers Brenda Hillman and 2010 Split This Rock featured poet Allison Hedge Coke.
Split This Rock at AWP in DC - Book Fair Booth #315
Split This Rock will have a major presence at the Associated Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference, February 3-5, 2011, when AWP returns to DC for the first time in more than a decade.
If you'll be in DC, we hope you'll join us! As a Literary Partner, Split This Rock will put on two featured conference presentations, a tribute to Langston Hughes, and a panel discussion on the poet as public citizen. We're also collaborating with other poetry and social change groups for offsite readings on immigration and the nightmare of Arizona's SB 1070, on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and celebrating queer voices.
On Thursday, February 3, we call poets and writers to speak out for an end to the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq at a peaceful, permitted event at the White House on Thursday, February 3.
Details about all these events, and more, on our AWP page. And let us know (info@splitthisrock.org) if you'd like to volunteer at Booth #315 in the Bookfair!
October 2, 2010 - The Poets' Contingent at the One Nation Working Together March on Washington
Demand the changes we voted for! One Nation Working Together is a social movement of individuals and organizations committed to putting America back to work and pulling America back together. Coming from a diverse set of backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, and orientations, we are determined to build a more united country with good jobs, equal justice, and high-quality public education for all.
On Saturday, October 2, 2010, thousands of Americans from across the country gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, to demonstrate our re-commitment to change. The poets' contingent carried signs with lines of poetry.
This movement includes human and civil rights organizations, unions and trade associations, nonprofit organizations, youth and student groups, religious and other faith groups, educational, peace, environmental, and ethnic associations, and any other groups and individuals who are committed to pulling our country back together now. Please join us!
July 31 @ Eatonville—Broken Gulf: A Benefit for the Louisiana Bucket Brigade
We know the power of poetry to demand change and to heal our world. On July 31, at Eatonville (2121 14th Street NW, Washington, DC), we will be using that power to benefit the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a grassroots, 501(c)3 environmental health and justice organization that has been helping residents living near Louisiana refineries fight air pollution for years, and is now helping them track and respond to the BP oil disaster that is ravaging the Gulf.
As a place of great artistic history, cultural diversity, and environmental importance, the Gulf region has an important place in our world. The urgency of this situation, as millions of gallons of oil flood the waters, suffocate the ocean, and threaten the livelihood of the people, gets greater with each day. Join Mississippi poet Angela Ball, DC poet Sonya Renee, Chris August, and the DC Youth Slam Teamas we raise our voices against the greed and corruption that caused this catastrophe.
Tickets to the event are $10, and are available online or at the door. There will be a raffle featuring items from local businesses such as ACKC and Fiddleheads, and tems from a Mississippi artisan, and we'll enjoy appetizers from Eatonville and live music.
Sponsored by Eatonville Restaurant, Split This Rock, and the Institute for Policy Studies. Please join us as we raise our voices in celebration and support of the Gulf!
July 23 and 24, 2010 – Busboys and Poets @ 5th & K, Washington, DC – "HOWL" in the City: Poetry & Music Celebrating Ginsberg's Photos at the National Gallery ... featuring Anne Waldman, Kyp Malone, and Matthew Hemerlein
In celebration of the landmark exhibition Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg on view at the National Gallery of Art through September 17, Busboys and Poets and Split This Rock present “Howl” in the City.
Renowned poet Anne Waldman and musician Kyp Malone will perform, accompanied by a quartet of musicians led by DC-based Matthew Hemerlein. Waldman will present three performances of Allen Ginsberg’s legendary poem Howl. A string quartet led by Hemerlein will perform the Washington, DC premiere of Lee Hyla’s 1993 composition Howl, to accompany Waldman’s reading of the poem. A contemporary and close friend of Ginsberg and one of the few female poets associated with the Beats, Waldman will also present her original poems each night and will be preceded by local poets Chris August, Kenneth Carroll, and Venus Thrash.
The performances will take place at 8:00 and 10 p.m. on July 23 and 8 p.m. on July 24. Tickets are $10 for each show; get yours at http://brownpapertickets.com/event/118024.
On Saturday, July 24, at 10:00 p.m., Kyp Malone, guitarist and singer for the popular experimental rock band TV on the Radio, will give a free performance on the K Street patio in front of the restaurant. Malone’s musical projects mirror the Beats’ unrelenting pursuit of creativity. The program is made possible in part by grants from the Alice Shaver Foundation and Poets & Writers, Inc. Cosponsored by The Passenger.
More details at Blog This Rock.
Speak Art to Power: March 16-20, 2009
Poets gathered at Split This Rock Poetry Festival in March 2008 signed an Appeal to Poets, Writers, and Creative Artists, and committed to a week of creative protest against war and social injustice March 16-21, 2009. Writers, artists, musicians, performers, are called on to use their art to provoke conversation, protest and action at the six year anniversary of war in Iraq. You can pledge to participate online. We encourage you to work with other artists in your community to organize local events and to post your events as "Speak Art to Power" on the United for Peace and Justice calendar, where others in your community might find your event.
In Washington DC, DC Poets Against the War is hosting a veterans' poetry reading at Busboys and Poets on 14th and V Streets on March 21, from 5-7 pm, with readings from the anthology Post Traumatic Press 2007. Please let us know what you are planning in your town and we'll help share the news. Thanks to Patricia Monaghan for her help coordinating.
One Percent for the Arts
Split This Rock joins Institute for Policy Studies in calling on Congress to support the arts in this time of crisis. During the 1930's the WPA project created jobs for 40,000 artists, musicians, writers, theater workers, and performers. Our generation deserves no less. Click here to read the IPS article.
The Nation publishedan article on this campaign. The Irish Times also reported on the push to include arts in the stimulus package.
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Check back for more events and ways to get involved!