Poetry has the power to build community and activate change.

The Delaware community is invited to see how during the Poetry as Activism Festival, a celebration of the written and spoken word. The festival will take place in various locations in and around the University of Delaware’s Morris Library from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 9.

Festivities include showcases where students and community members will read and perform poetry.

Featured performers include Al Mills, Poet Laureate of Delaware; Maiss Hussein and Joelle Caternor, winner and runner-up, respectively, in Delaware’s Poetry Out Loud student competition; SuiteFranchon, poet; Dana Kinsey, Ebony Rashidah and Dennis Spence, spoken word artists; and many more. Richard Raw, recording artist, activist and cultural arts educator, will emcee the showcases.

"Poetry allows people to express, identify, explore, relate and shift the energy so that people can ‘act,’” said Traci Currie, Ph.D., the inaugural Poet-in-Residence for the Library, Museums and Press’ Poetry as Activism Project. “This community event provides such a space to speak and be heard. We are creating intentional spaces for people's stories to be acknowledged and witnessed."

The festival will kick off with an opportunity to look closer at some of the rare and historic materials in the Library’s Special Collections that have been digitized for the Poetry as Activism Project as well as archival materials related to activism in Delaware. After the showcases, the event will feature lightning talks and a roundtable discussion about archiving activism, before concluding with a conversation reflecting on the work of the Poetry as Activism Project thus far.

Throughout the afternoon of celebrations, books relating to the theme of poetry as activism will be available for sale from Books and Bagels as well as Huxley and Hiro, two independent bookstores in Wilmington.

All are welcome to attend. Registration is requested.

Students, faculty, staff and community members interested in sharing their creative talents and reading poetry can sign up to participate in the showcase through noon on Wednesday, May 8. 

The Poetry as Activism Festival is supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Wilmington Public Library as well as a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

About the Poetry as Activism Project

The Poetry as Activism Project within the Library, Museums and Press draws on the archival collections of 20th-century American poets, with a focus on poets from historically marginalized groups, to engage with archival materials in new ways. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the project examines the role that activism has played in poets’ lives and art over time while also exploring the notion of poetry as activism more generally.