The Word Fest is Albany Poets’ annual celebration of the poetry, art, and spoken word of Upstate New York taking place each April.
Way back in ancient times (i.e., 12 years ago) when Word Fest started, it was just a stumbing toddler in Thatcher Park in the Fall, a grand open mic of everyone & anyone who wanted to & could sign up, a poetic, shall we say, cluster fuck, the alcohol induced birth of the brain-child of […]
WordFest 2013, Day 6: Open Mic, April 19 Read More »
They packed the house tonight at the Social Justice Center for the second standing-room-only event of WordFest. Of course it helped that there were 18 featured poets, students from the Poetry in Performance class at the College of St. Rose. But there were also 17 poets signed up for the open mic, loyal regulars, some
WordFest 2013, Day 5, April 18 — Third Thursday Poetry Night Read More »
This night’s piece of WordFest 2013 was a free screening of the 2011 film Louder than a Bomb at The Linda on Central Ave. This is from the press release for the film: “Louder than a Bomb is a film about passion, competition, teamwork, and trust. It’s about the joy of being young, and the pain
WordFest 2013, Day 4, April 17 Read More »
A reading we are all familiar with, hosted by Dan Wilcox. The “featured poet” a group of students from St. Rose forced to take a performance class. The second event of the week that was standing room only. In keeping with the theme I wrote a mediocre poem describing the event… A group of kids
Word Fest 2013: A 7 Day Poem – Part 5 Read More »
It was the WordFest edition of the regular Nitty Gritty Slam, a special Haiku slam, & perhaps one could also say the “Jackie Robinson Slam” (42 being his number). My kind of Slam — hard to make a Haiku last 3 minutes. But first the open mic, hosted by Christopher the Poet, as effervescent as
WordFest 2013, Day 3 — Nitty Gritty Slam #42 Read More »
One has to wonder “what the frack is going on?” but of course it is only WordFest 2013, with “Poets Against Fracking” at the UAG Gallery, day 2 of this week-long event sponsored by AlbanyPoets.com. Kevin Peterson was busy taking notes & V-P (“very pretty”) Mary Panza did the intros for this featured band of
WordFest 2013, Day 2, April 15 Read More »
We continue the 2013 Albany Word Fest Online Open Mic with three new poems from local poet Brian Dorn. Brian has been coming around to many of the open mics in the area in the past few months and participated in the Haiku Battle this past Tuesday at Valentine’s. Huge Promoting giant sell-a-thons Like exchanging stocks and
2013 Albany Word Fest Online Open Mic – Three Poems From Brian Dorn Read More »
4/17/13-Louder than a Bomb-Poem about a documentary style movie about poetry. Some really meta stuff… I’m partial to the character Kevin in the film. I identify with him for some reason. It is the second time i’ve seen the movie so it’s ok to show up late, right? It’s nice to pick up on all
Word Fest 2013: A 7 Day Poem – Part 4 Read More »
Editor Jill Crammond (left) with poetry co-conspirator Carolee Sherwood As I have been wont to say during April, “In Albany, every day is Poetry Month.” Especially today as the week-long WordFest 2013 starts, & this is my second poetry event of the day. It was the “book launch” for the new poetry journal Up the
WordFest 2013, Day 1, April 14 Read More »
4/16/13-Nitty Gritty Slam Lots of firsts on Tuesday night. The first ever Nitty Gritty Slam Haiku Battle. Read my first poems of the 2013 Word Fest. First ever Nitty Gritty win for Massachusetts poet Christian Phiffer. In keeping with the spirit of the event, some haiku inspired by what transpired… Congratulations Christian on winning it
Word Fest 2013: A 7 Day Poem – Part 3 Read More »
4/15/13-Poets Against Fracking So I will admit, I was a bit skeptical going into this one. I am typically very apolitical, anyone starting with an agenda tends to turn me off. Gave it a shot, had a fine evening. This was the result… “It was an intimate reading” is the polite way of saying not
Word Fest 2013: A 7 Day Poem – Part 2 Read More »
We are kicking off our 2013 Albany Word Fest Online Open Mic with three poems by poet Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia. Garcia is the author of This Sentimental Education and Enter the After-Garde. He was raised in Brooklyn, NY and has a degree in Linguistics from SUNY Albany. He was a cook for a dozen years but
2013 Albany Word Fest Online Open Mic – Three Poems by Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia Read More »
The Hudson Valley Writers Guild supports the efforts of writers in all genres by sponsoring readings, workshops, and contests and providing a number of valuable resources for the entire literary community.
