6th Annual Peoples’ Poetry Fest, February 25 — February 27

America is the land of poetry festivals — among the ones that I’ve attended are Split This Rock Poetry Festival, Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, Albany Word Fest, The Day of the Poet, & festivals in Rensselaerville, Voorheesville, Woodstock, & Brooklyn. One that did come under my radar was the People’s Poetry Festival in Corpus Christi, Texas, at Texas A&M University. This year one of my poetry buddies out that way sent me an email about it, & I happily joined in without having the bother of a hotel reservation or plane ticket. Like everything else these days, it was on Zoom. The Festival was held from the evening of Thursday, February 25 through Saturday, February 27.

Thursday, February 25

The opening night included the induction of the poet Tom Murphy as the 3rd Official Poet Laureate of Corpus Christi. He was introduced by the out-going Poet Laureate, Juan Perez, & Corpus Christi Mayor, Paulette Guajardo, read the Official Proclamation.

I had met Tom a few years back when he was one of the readers at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, most recently in 2019. Tom is also one of the originators of the People’s Poetry Festival back in 2016. After all the official stuff was done Tom read 3 poems, “Telling the Bees” with lots plays on word sounds, “Terry Martin” a long memoir of childhood friend, & a villanelle, “Living Teaching Near the Water” a COVID poem.

Friday, February 26

There were 3 panels on Friday afternoon & evening, each lasting about an hour with breaks in between, & a late night open mic (late night for me, since I’m here in the Eastern Time Zone). “Panels” is the term they used, but each event was essentially readings by 4 poets & a moderator. 

Word-Image/Image-Word Panel

This was chaired by Joshua Hamilton & included work that used visual images that engaged with text to a greater or lesser degree, including Natalia Treviño’s ekphrastic poems responding to images of the Virgin, complex drawings by Octavio Quintanilla & related poems, & 3-D posters of art & text by Andrea Hempstead.

Rising Poets Panel

Poet & senior at TAMUCC, Dylan Lopez, was the chair of this reading by student poets, Crystal Garcia, Raven Reese, a stunning found text/cut-up by Zoe Ramos, & quarantine poems by Nicole Bren.

Poetry in Translation Panel

The chair of this session was poet & president of the Latin American Foundation for the Arts Rossy Lima de Padilla, & the panel paired poets with their translators for readings in Spanish & English, including Juan Armando Rojas Joo with translator Jeniffer Rathbun, Christopher Carmona with translator Gerald Padilla, & Carolina Sanchez with translator Ariel Francisco. 

Open Mic at Revolve One

The final panel in the late evening was an open mic hosted by Crystal Garcia with her brother Rudy, who run a local Corpus Christi multi-genre podcast Revolve One (I found it on Spotify). While the PPF website encouraged poets to sign up prior to the event, poets kept popping up & jumping in; I think the total may have been about 21 readers. & as to be expected there was a refreshing variety in the themes & styles of the of the poems read, & the list even included a poet reading at her first open mic, Danielle Johnson. I had picked out a variety of poems to read, wanting to get a feel for what folks were reading, but the political poems read by Michelle Excellente Steveran inspired me to read “When Donald Trump Farts.” Other political/social justice pieces included Charity McCoy’s “Adoration” on black history, Robin Carstensen’s #White House Rodeo, & a piece by Alan Berecka on the January 6 attack on the Capitol. I was pleased to be in the poetic company of the poets of Corpus Christi & beyond.

Saturday, February 27

Hope Panel

I had been especially drawn to the Festival by this reading that included 3 poets I had met at Scissortail Festivals, 2 of whom I was able to get for readings here in Albany. The theme of the session was “Hope.”

The Chair of the panel was Alan Berecka, who grew up in the Utica area & in July 2011, when he was back East visiting family, I was able to book him for Poets in the Park. He began with a brand new piece about the Winter storms ravishing Texas “To Build a Fire” using books to start the fire to keep warm, then “Home for the Holidays” & a poem responding to Emily Dickinson’s famous line, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers —” (#254).

Alex Salinas, who now lives in San Antonio, Texas, was the one poet in this session with whom I was not familiar; he read selections from his 2 books, Warbles, & Dreamt, or The Lingering Phantoms of Equinox (both from Hekate Publishing), including “Connect Four” a childhood memory of growing up in Corpus playing the game with his Spanish-speaking grandma, “Salt” about his family name (which he said was his 1st published poem), & a moving list poem “The Great Thing about Sometimes Being Hispanic” with the repeating refrain “the part about …but not the part…” There were others, & he included some new poems, notably a couple in a form of his invention what he is calling an “Hispanic sonnet” in 15 lines. So glad to have been introduced to the work of Alex Salinas by this panel.

Ken Hada, who runs the annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, is the other poet on this panel who has read in the Capital Region, in Albany, in Saratoga Springs, & in Woodstock; he has a weekly podcast, The Sunday Poems with Ken Hada, that I listen to while making my Sunday breakfast each week. He began with a brand new poem “Morning,” then read from 2 of his books that I don't have in my collection, Not Quite Pilgrims (Strawberry Hedgehog, 2019) & Sunlight & Cedar (Strawberry Hedgehog, 2020). Check out his website at www.kenhada.org

Dorothy Alexander is another of the fabulous poets I enjoy seeing again each time I can get to Scissortail Creative Writing Festival. She & her life partner, Devey Napier, run Village Books Press, which has won 5 grand prizes from Oklahoma Books Awards. She read a selection of poems from her poetry collections, including a story that brings tears to my eyes (I've heard her read it before), “Hope from the Heart of a Horse,” a true story of her taking in a 9-year old girl, Rhonda, & the horse that helped her grow, & a tender love poem to Devey,  “Celebrating Resurrection.”

Switchgrass Review Panel

The last reading I was able to attend was by contributors to Switchgrass Review: Literary Journal of Health & Transformation, chaired by Robin Carstensen. The readers included Cindy Huyser, Regina Jamison, Roxana Cazan, & Odilia Galván Rodriguez. You can find out more about Switchgrass Review at their website http://switchgrassreview.org.

You can see the full schedule of the Festival, including a list of all the poets with links for their books & their websites at https://www.peoplespoetryfest.com 

I am seriously considering of actually going to Corpus Christi next February to attend the People’s Poetry Festival in person, providing we all get vaccinated & rid us all of COVID-19.