For the third year, poets from all over the nation will converge on Taos for the Verse~Converse Poetry Festival this June 3-6. Produced by Open Hearth Arts, the festival brings poets and fans together to build a community of shared language and vision . This year's festival theme "Celebrating the Sacred Word is designed to dovetail with this year's Taos theme "Celebrating Sacred Places." With the goal of creating an event which draws from all styles and welcomes poetic diversity (including poets primarily from page and from stage), the festival organizers have decided this year to delve into new formats, expanding the festival in dynamic ways.
Among the new events this year is the First Annual Verse~Converse Festival Award for Film. With the popularity of poetry related cinema growing exponentially through film festivals and independent screenings, the organizers felt that it was time to recognize the film-makers at the forefront of this new movement. On Friday June 4th the festival will present a special, pre-release screening of the film "Spoken Word" co-written by Joe Ray Sandoval, an iconic member of the northern New Mexico poetry community. Also the subject of the film, whose themes include losing your voice and finding it again, Joe Ray will accept the award in person, followed by a question and answer period. On Saturday June 5th, Joe Ray will also be featured on the festival’s main stage, alongside multi-award winning NYC poet Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and Albuquerque’s native daughter, Jessica Helen Lopez, a member of the nationally renowned Macondo foundation started by Sandra Cisneros.The main stage this year will be held at the Kachina Lodge Cabaret Hall at 7:30 pm.
Ms. Tsai and Ms. Lopez will also be among those facilitating workshops for festival goers on Saturday before the main event, also at the Kachina Lodge. Workshops will address poetic writing, creativity, performance skills and more; Examples include everything from writing sestinas to "Pop Goes the Culture" a workshop on incorporating or destroying pop culture in verse led by Oklahoma City Poet Rob Sturma.
Sturma and eleven other spoken word artists from around the country will also descend in a whirlwind of verse and passion on Friday June 4th for The Taos Invitational Poetry Championship, a regional poetry competition that will take competitors through six exacting rounds of demonstrating performance, improvisation and craft. The winner of this competition takes home $500. The event will draw together poets from Oklahoma City, Seattle, Taos, Denver, and Albuquerque, including last year’s defending champion Christian Drake, a nationally recognized spoken word artist who makes his home in New Mexico.
"We want to recognize the true breadth of the poetic diversity that makes up the poetic community at large", states Festival Coordinator Zachary Kluckman. "There are hundreds of amazing young writers out there who are sharpening their craft at an early age and we want to make sure they have equal representation here"
In keeping with that ideal, the festival opens on Thursday June 3rd with the Youth Bracket of the Invitational. This will be a team competition that will offer young poets from the region a chance to compete in a "poetry Olympics" event where they will be judged on performance, craft, and the ability to interpret their work for an audience. The winner of this event will be given a chance to share the stage Saturday night with the headliners as well.
The Festival concludes on Sunday, June 6 for an open poetry circle in Taos Plaza. All poets and fans are welcome to share poetry and light refreshments, 10 am to noon. There is also a final screening of "Spoken Word" on Sunday at 1 pm (venue TBA) to gently unwind from the weekend of verse.
For more details on registration, lodging and schedules, please visit the website at www.wix.com/physicalpoet/VC-page or on Facebook. You can also contact Zachary Kluckman directly at (505) 730-9544 or by e-mail at zgkluckman@msn.com.
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