Poetry in Action

As we approach the end of April and National Poetry Month, I want to share O, Miami with you. I was struck by Miami's multi-pronged approach to poetry during April and sharing poetry with the whole city in a variety of ways. Their mission statement is impressive: "O, Miami builds community around the power of poetry. Through collaborations, projects, events, and publications, we create a platform for amplifying Miamians, investing in a new shared narrative of our city and a more equitable picture of its future."

The goal of the annual O, Miami Poetry Festival is for every single person in Miami-Dade County to encounter a poem!

So what does this mean in terms of events? There are loads of them! How about Wheels and Words - a Miami-Dade County Dept. of Transportation bus decorated with poems by 3rd and 4th graders. 

Poetry Parking Tickets are made to look like Miami-Dade County parking tickets, but instead of a citation, each ticket contains a poem. This turns the experience of getting ticketed into something positive. 

I personally like the Lost Socks/Missed Connections Embroidery Workshop. It's described as "a whimsical archival poetry project that connects South Florida’s Craigslist Missed Connections and the mythology of lost socks. Socks featuring sewn, ironed, and embroidered Missed Connection posts-as-poems will be dispersed at five laundromats across Miami-Dade. Lost Socks / Missed Connections is a project of chance and fun, hoping to spread a bit of joy to those who find them." I'd love to find a lost sock that featured some poetry!

Fruit Stickers would put a lot more fun into grocery shopping. O, Miami welcomes you to turn fruits and veggies into a sweet poetic encounter. Join our street team and help us spread joy in the produce aisle by distributing poetry fruit stickers. You may meet an introspective banana or a lime declaring its love for you. The stickers feature 9 original poems written by O, Miami’s elementary & middle school students.

One of the most interesting installations is called Wish-a-Poem. This interactive project involves three libraries in Miami. At each library, patrons will see a magic lamp on a white pedestal. When they rub that lamp, phrases of a new poem appear simultaneously on screens at all three libraries. This was not designed by a genie, but rather by Yucef Merhi, a student of philosophy, physics, and interactive telecommunications. To create the language behind Wish-a-Poem, he built a database of phrases drawn from the poetry archive of O, Miami, and generated by artificial intelligence. 

“I see poetry as a living matter,” says Merhi, “as something that is constantly changing and transforming. Every time you rub the lamp, you get a new poem, and the combinations or the poetry combinations that you can get are in the number of thousands.”

I would love a chance to rub that lamp!

I'm amazed by Miami's commitment of people, time, money, ideas, and creativity to National Poetry Month. I'm not sure if they can meet their lofty goal of every person in the county encountering a poem, but with things like poetry on wheels, fruit stickers, and magical lamps that you can rub and wish-a-poem, it certainly could happen.