The Kalamazoo Poetry Festival announces its 2020 event, a Celebration of Community Poets, will be online Saturday, April 25. It will feature at least 15 local poets presenting their works.

The festival has been rescheduled in compliance with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order that all people stay home and stay safe during the spread of COVID-19. A video compilation will be offered on Facebook at the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival Facebook page on online at the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival website. There will be a Facebook watch party at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 25.

Poets recorded poems they would have read at the 2020 Festival and their readings have been compiled by board member Cameron Decker. Contributors include local favorite Bonnie Jo Campbell and former Kalamazoo resident and Copper Canyon Press poet Traci Brimhall.

“The Celebration of Community Poet and the Open Mic are such important events in the mission of the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival that we had to find a new way to do them,” says Board president John Minser. “There are so many voices in Kalamazoo with so much to say, and these events represent a powerful way to hear from community members of all ages and walks of life.”

Kalamazoo Poetry Festival emcees also will read their poems.

Artist, musician, entrepreneur, community leader and organizer Ed Genesis will emcee the  video recorded readings from across the community. Some of the poets will represent groups doing good works in the community, some are from various writing collaboratives across Kalamazoo, and others represent themselves.  Dana Hudson (Great Dane) who was originally to host the open mic following the Celebration of Community Poets, will also be part of the recorded readings.

Hudson has published what she describes as a vulnerable and honest poetry chapbook, Testimony in 2016. In 2018, she went on to create and host “For the Good” Open Mic at First Baptist Church, a monthly show that features activists and artists who use their platform to bring awareness to and push forward conversations about social change. She also competed on the Retort United National Slam Team in August 2018 and received three National Spoken Word Awards nominations. She currently works as a teaching artist in Kalamazoo and as the Slam and Open Mic Organizer for Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, an organization focused on amplifying youth voices.

The 2020 Festival originally was scheduled for April 18, with the Celebration of Community Poets at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, 314 S. Park St., and an open mic at Fire, 1249 Portage Street.

The Kalamazoo Poetry Festival takes place each year during National Poetry Month.

About the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival

The Kalamazoo Poetry Festival Steering Committee was formed in November 2012 to create an annual celebration of the area’s outstanding poets. In 2014 it had its first festival and became a nonprofit arts organization. The Festival is possible thanks to the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, the Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation, the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts and many individuals and other corporate and organizational supporters.