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Program & Schedule: Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Online Registration Closed

Festival contact

Split This Rock will enter a fallow season on July 1, 2021, and all of our external programming and publishing efforts are on pause until April 1, 2022. We’re excited for time to dig into deeper wells of creativity for: 1) expanding the organizations’ capacity for working towards liberation; 2) defining more concretely what working towards liberation means at Split This Rock; 3) increasing the impact of our poetry, resistance, and community building offerings; and 4) more deeply aligning the organization’s mission with its systems, protocols, and practices. Learn more about the inspiration, projects, and goals for fallow season at the News from Split This Rock webpage. Visit the fallow season webpage to explore responses to frequently asked questions. We’re eager to continue engaging with you! To be invited to fallow season community gatherings we’ll be hosting, be sure to complete this online form.

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness invites poets, writers, artists, activists, dreamers, and all concerned world citizens to Washington, DC, for poetry, community building, and creative transformation as our country continues to grapple with two wars, a crippling economic crisis, and other social and environmental ills. The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism –- opportunities to imagine a way forward, hone our activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change.

The official bookseller of the festival is the Teaching for Change Bookstore at Busboys and Poets. Visit the store (at Busboys and Poets or online) to find progressive books to activate your mind and community. Run by Teaching for Change.

Wednesday, March 10 Thursday, March 11 Friday, March 12 Saturday, March 13

2-5:30 pm    REGISTRATION/CHECK-IN OPENS (Busboys and Poets, Langston Room)

Online registration is open through March 5, 2010. If you register online, you will receive an email confirmation, but registration packets will not be mailed. Pick up your packet and festival badge at check-in. Student rates and scholarships are available.

Registering online will guarantee your spot!

6-7 p.m.       OPENING CEREMONY FEATURING YOUNG DC VOICES (Busboys and Poets, Langston Room)

Featuring young DC voices, including the Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project, the Shakti Brigade, winners of Split This Rock’s World & Me Youth Poetry Contest, and members of the DC Youth Slam Team. With readings of poems by Dennis Brutus, Lucille Clifton, and Mahmoud Darwish, plus the inspiring words of Howard Zinn.

 

8:00 pm       FEATURED READING (Bell Multicultural High School)

Andrea Gibson

Wang Ping

Cornelius Eady

Poets-in-Residence of Busboys & Poets: Holly Bass, Beny Blaq, and Derrick Weston Brown

 

10:30 pm-Midnight      OPEN MIC featuring mothertongue (Busboys and Poets, Langston Room)

Hosted by Regie Cabico, featuring mothertongue. Speak your mind, speak your truth, split some rocks. Bring a 3-minute poem and sign up at the door.