Tagged: poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month, WLRN - Miami Herald News is teaming up with the O, Miami poetry festival to bring you That's So Miami--a project documenting your thoughts about Miami, in verse.    

We want to see your Miami, not “CSI: Miami” or “Miami Vice” or “Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach.” The only rule is that your poem has to begin or end with the phrase, “That’s so Miami.”

Three years ago, a group of friends and I started to dream up what a lot of people considered impossible: a festival that would bring poetry to all 2.6 million residents of greater Miami.

At that time, Miami’s cultural scene was exploding. Art Basel was in full force, and we wanted to do a festival that was the opposite of the “pipe-and-blazer” readings that most people associate with poetry. We wanted to do a festival that reflected Miami’s diversity and personality.

Today kicks off National Poetry Month, and O, Miami -- the biennial, South Florida poetry festival -- has lined up a myriad of creative ways to deliver a poem to every single person in the city.

Lorelei Ramirez was the winner in the College category of Under the Sun‘s unpublished writers competition.

Flagler Street

by Lorelei Ramirez

This is what we’ve got

These

Palm trees

Swaying in the breeze along the

Not the sea or shining sands under the sun but

Swaying

In the middle of streets

Dark paved roads and honking horns and not quite so clean air

Between walking girls and whistling men in dirty white cars

Pickup trucks

And bus

stops.

Hundreds of Miami-Dade middle and high school students listened to “Two Pianos” by Morton Gould. Afterwards, they wrote poems inspired by the music.  It was part of a contest called the Piano Slam.  The point is to inspire young people, using classical music, to create their own forms of artistic expression.

Lindsay Lonano was the winner in the Kids category of Under the Sun‘s unpublished writers competition.

Lindsay Lonano

The Swamp

The green swamp

Bursts open with abundant life.

A slowly moving log appears

Upon the still surface.

Unsuspecting little bird

Unaware a predator lurks.

Munch! Fast moving predator

Eyes atop his head, delighted!

Alas! Not full yet

He slides upon a rabbit.

Prey, gone in a flash

Where did it go. Woe!

When Richard Blanco got the call that he'd been chosen to write a poem for President Obama's second inauguration, at first he thought it was a prank. He still has no idea how he ended up on the President's radar.

"I would dream actually that the President has actually read my work and was so moved by it," says Blanco, laughing, "that he said, 'I want this guy to read a poem at the inaugural.'"

Politics can be quite the poetic muse - especially statehouse politics, it turns out.

We recently challenged members of the Public Insight Network to write about politics in the Sunshine State - in a limerick.* 

Poets are melancholy and morose, right?

“I’m so happy,” says a beaming 23-year-old Marci Calabretta of Hallandale Beach.

People who write poetry can’t relate to others, correct?

“I love people.  I adore people,” says 23-year-old Jose Villar of South Miami.

Most poetic souls are lonely and live in dusty attic rooms in ancient houses.

“I live in one of those over-55 ‘active’ communities,” laughs 64-year-old Adele Alexandre of Coconut Creek.