13 March 30 - april 5, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | Culture | Cafe | MusiC | miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Stanza and Deliver O, Miami Poetry Festival aims for higher visibility in 2023. BY ISABELLA MARIE GARCIA F or O, Miami, 2023 stands as a mo- ment to challenge the precon- ceived notions of its poetry-focused programming. “We’re really focused on doing what we do best, but doing it bigger, better, and with greater impact and reach,” P. Scott Cunningham, the festival’s founder and CEO, tells New Times. “The stuff we’re doing now we couldn’t have done two years ago, and we’re enjoying that journey.” For the last eight years, O, Miami has part- nered with WLRN on Zip Odes, a poetic structure where each number of the author’s ZIP code corresponds to the number of words in each line. The activation has re- ceived 15,000 submis- sions throughout its run. For this year’s fes- tival, O, Miami has an- nounced that one lucky Zip Ode will be displayed on a bill- board across from the Miami-Dade Arena in downtown Miami during April. Titled “[ Your poem here ],” the project is one of many oc- curring across Miami-Dade County during National Poetry Month. Last fall, O, Miami opened its festival sub- mission earlier than in prior years. “That’s 100 percent the work of my colleagues Melissa Gomez and Sara Haley, who have done an amazing job creating a more systemized and efficient process for our festival planning,” Cunningham explains. And with a growing number of submissions, the festival’s impact in Miami and beyond is more visible than ever. “We have a huge project, I think the big- gest we’ve ever done, debuting in [in April],” Cunningham says. “In collaboration with the City of Miami Beach, we’ve commis- sioned an artist collective from Spain called Boa Mistura to paint two gigantic water tanks adjacent to Miami Beach Senior High. For the last six months, we’ve been teaching poetry at Beach High, and the poetry the students are writing is being incorporated into the project.” Everything is on the table for this year’s festival — from ekphrastic workshops on Dolly Parton’s cultural impact to an open mic night at Super Wheels. Every day of April is jam-packed with an event or poetry-based project that strives to reach Miami-Dade resi- dents across the city. You might even encoun- ter poems in the form of a parking ticket, temporary tattoos, or while flying into Miami International Airport. Regardless of where you are located in Mi- ami-Dade or how frequently you read poetry, O, Miami invites everyone to experience the literary form irrespective of experience or skill level. Beginners can find themselves one- to-one with a poet at Books & Books in Coral Gables, and the young poets can participate in the Poetry in Pajamas open mic at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden. There are even workshops tied to local happenings, whether community writing trauma-informed work- shops addressing the Surfside tragedy or the preservation of Virginia Key Beach Park. The lucky winner of the inaugural “[ Your poem here ]” contest will be revealed on April 3, after which their poem will be plastered on the downtown billboard for three weeks. WLRN news director Sergio Bustos says more than 200 submissions were sent in for the chance to be featured, with hundreds more expected before the March 22 deadline. Even if you’re not the selected winner, you can still submit a Zip Ode throughout April. Every Saturday in April, WLRN will an- nounce the top ten poems of the week, culmi- nating in the Zip Odes finale on April 26 at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, where chosen Zip Odes will be read aloud to a public audi- ence by their authors. Whether your ZIP code has a zero in the middle or a nine at the end, there’s one thing everyone submitting a Zip Ode will have in common: it will start with the num- ber three. O, Miami Poetry Festival. Saturday, April 1, through Sunday, April 30, at various locations; omiami.org. Ticket prices vary. [email protected] ▼ Culture [ Your poem here ] billboard project in downtown Miami for the 2023 O, Miami Poetry Festival. Photo by Lily Mora/O, Miami “THE STUFF WE’RE DOING NOW WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE TWO YEARS AGO.”
