O, Miami, the inaugural monthlong poetry festival, was organized on April 2011 by University of Wynwood director P. Scott Cunningham and self proclaimed "culturologist" Pete Borrebach with a grant from Knight Foundation.
“We wanted to saturate the city with poetry, to create moments of rupture in someone’s day.” That's how P. Scott Cunningham explained the charged mission of his O, Miami poetry festival. For its month-long debut in April 2011, the ambitious goal was nothing less than introducing every single one of greater Miami’s 2.5 million residents to a poem.
“We didn’t want to just rally the existing audience,” - Cunningham said - in fact he wanted to fully embrace Knight’s ethos of “recontextualizing art for a new audience”. Of course, finding a new local audience for poetry wasn’t simply an option — it was a necessity. Miami’s die-hard poetry crowd was far too small to support a traditionally-modeled festival.
"If the purpose of art is to provide reflection, or to get us to slow down and rethink things, poetry is the thing that does that for text. It tries to find meaning, to make the familiar strange, and the strange somewhat familiar.” said Cunnigham.
The way to broaden poetry’s appeal was to step outside of its traditional channels. Cunningham’s own love of poetry is a testament to this stealth approach. He dated his own passion for the form with discovering a Billy Collins poem on the wall inside a Manhattan subway car during the late 90s — part of the Poetry Society of America’s “Poetry in Motion” project.
With that example in mind, Cunningham reached out to a brain trust that included Miami Beach poet and Florida International University professor Campbell McGrath, poet and Fulbright Scholarship Board chairman Tom Healy, and Miami Book Fair co-founder Mitchell Kaplan. They pondered how to present unorthodox events while still spotlighting the best the poetry world had to offer, how to, as Knight vice-president of arts Dennis Scholl quipped, “take the orchestra out of the pit and into the streets”.
“We wanted the festival to be high-quality,” Cunningham said “but also reach people who — even if they saw a poetry reading advertised — would never, ever go to it.”
Healy suggested O, Miami embrace multi-disciplinary events to “change the atmosphere” whether via injecting poetry into a modern dance concert, working amidst an art installation, or simply serving an evening meal at an outdoor, waterfront restaurant. “Putting food and poetry together was brilliant — you’re got people comfortable and then you’re in a place where it’s a quintessentially Miami experience.”
Art Basel’s example also loomed large, particularly with its ability to present avant-garde art as simultaneously enlightening and accessible. On that note, Campbell McGrath stressed the importance of avoiding anything that smacked of the classroom or the Ivory Tower — poetry’s more familiar home. Similarly, Mitchell Kaplan believed O, Miami needed to feel less like an educational journey and more “like an event!”
"There are still people who want to interact with writers". As proof he noted the record-size crowds for the Miami Book Fair, even as national pundits tell us that devoted readers are all supposedly cocooning at home with their Kindles. The key would seem to be harnessing the power of a spectacle, utilizing Miami’s love of glitz to break through poetry’s “closed circuit.”
It’s hard to quantify just exactly how many of Miami-Dade county’s residents encountered a poem over the course of the month. But if O, Miami missed a few people, it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.
The Knight Foundation and festival organizers have documented the project, collecting the list of events and their locations, some video and imagery, all the projects that took place, and a collection of the poetry that was featured.
To see Past O, Miami go to http://www.omiami.org/festival/
In April 2014, with principal support provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the festival organizers are producing or co-producing nearly an event per day, along with twenty-five projects designed to reach new audiences in Miami-Dade County.
Stay tuned to their Events Calendar for where to go and when.
This below is the almost complete list of the events of April 2014
For each change date see: http://www.omiami.org/events
O, Miami Poetry Festival
A night of poetic influences with Cathy Bowman, Campbell McGrath, Mia Leonin & Jaswinder Bolina
Robert Hass, Kay Ryan & Nikky Finney live-projected into Soundscape Park. Free! Bring your blanket!
Stephanie Strickland: Poetry and New Technologies
Stephanie Strickland, Denise Duhamel, Julie Marie Wade
Cuban-American poet José Kozer reads in his first appearance in Miami since winning the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize.
A Reading and Discussion with Jaswinder Bolina and Mia Leonin
Miami's own Michael Hettich reads from his newest collection at our favorite bookstore, Books & Books.
Omni Zona Franca at PAMM Family Day
Pretty much what it sounds like
Year Two of the crowd-favorite reading
Augmented Reality Poetry Class
Learn how to make "augmented reality poems" on your smartphone with poet Terri Witek artist Matt Roberts
O, Miami and Centro Cultural Español present award-winning Spanish poet Elena Medel
SPEAKtacular: A Jason Taylor Foundation Experience
Youth poets from the Jason Taylor Foundation present an evening of poetry, dance, & music
Lowe International Prize-winner Elena Medel explains the current state of poetry in Spain.
Student Editing Workshop with Don Share
Free workshop for student lit mag editors with Don Share, Editor of Poetry magazine in Chicago
Pages & Spreads Miami Zine Fair
A comprehensive showcase of Miami's DIY publishing scene
Poetry magazine Editor Don Share reads on Biscayne Bay at sunset
We close out O, Miami with a Dirty Limerick competition at Gramp's Bar in Wynwood
Alice Willi
