Asheville WordFest!

Join us in Asheville, NC, April 30-May 3. This is free to the public!

SCHEDULE
7 pm Thursday April 30 at Jubilee! 46 Wall St
Lee Ann Brown, Patrick Rosal, doris davenport, Ross Gay

10 and 11 pm departing from Jubilee!
LaZoom Poetry Bus Tour presented by Catalyst Productions

4 pm Friday May 1 at Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center:
Caroline Mercurio, Holly Iglesias, David Hopes

7 pm Friday May 1 at Jubilee!
Elizabeth Bradfield, Gary Copeland Lilley, Quincy Troupe

10 pm Friday May 1 at Bobo Gallery at 22 Lexington Ave
Thomas Rain Crowe & the Boatrockers w/ Coleman Barks followed by Wordfest Wide Open Mic. . .

Saturday Morning 10 a.m. May 2 Bookworks 428 1/2 Haywood Road, West Asheville 828.255.8444
Writing the Imaginative Storm Workshop with James Nave

2 pm Saturday May 2 at Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center at 56 Broadway
Keith Flynn, Pat Riviere-Seel, Ekiwah Adler Belendez

7 pm Saturday May 2 at Jubilee!
Valzhyna Mort, Frank X Walker, Li-Young Lee

10 pm Saturday May 2 Hookah Joe’s,38b North French Broad
Poetix Lounge featuring The Poetix Vanguard w/ an open set

Sunday Morning May 3 10 a.m. Bookworks 428 1/2 Haywood Road West Asheville 828.255.8444
Poetry and Citizens Journalism w/ Laura Hope-Gill, Wally Bowen, Sebastian Matthews

3 pm Sunday May 3 at Malaprops Bookstore/Café 55 Haywood St.
Debora Kinsland Foerst, Landon Godfrey, Paul Allen followed by Closing Reception

WHY ASHEVILLE WORDFEST?

Like everybody else, I grew up in a house of ghosts. My ghosts were the stories of my grandparents’ and father’s three year internment by the Japanese in a concentration camp in north China. The stories were held in the ivory fans on display in the curio, in the silk robes in the trunk engraved with an ancient court scene and in my grandmother’s half-veiled stories. I always wanted to know more. When in 10th grade history class we studied World War II, I waited for my chance to ask the questions. The chapter ended, however, with no mention of prison camps or even Japan’s actions in China. I can still see the half-blank page in the textbook, the last page of the chapter of the war. I raised my hand and asked the teacher, “What about the prison camps in China?” He replied quite plainly, “There weren’t any.” For a flicker of an instant I did not know whom to trust—my family or the textbook. And in that moment I became aware that there are two types of knowledge in the world—that which is official and that which is unofficial. I became a believer in the latter and have cleaved to it every moment since.
For me, the source of this unofficial knowledge has been poetry, the great test of every experience I’ve had. If it was true, I could write a poem about it. If I was lying to myself, I could not. Now, as the director of Asheville Wordfest, I view the poetry we bring as a vital source of this unofficial knowledge. Every stroke of a pen at an executive level causes millions of poems to be written worldwide. I dream of reading those poems, of gathering as much of the whole truth as I can. I dream of sharing as much of it with the people in my community, so we can all know more about the world we live in and deepen our experience of it. I read Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking almost fifteen years after that day in world history class. Chang writes of a code of silence included in the treaty between U.S. and Japan. I see now that this official collaboration in secrecy dictated my moment. At the heart of Asheville Wordfest is the idea that we don’t have to rely on textbooks to tell us history of our world. But we do need poetry.

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Poetry for Asheville Wordfest is news of the world we live in. Woven into this perspective is Asheville Worfest’s drive to bring together poets from diverse cultural, aesthetic, historical, and physical contexts. In 2009 we will present: Li-Young Lee, the son of Chine emigrants escaping the Cultural Revolution: Valzhnya Mort of Minsk, who writes in Belarusian at a time when the language is almost extinct under Soviet influence: Ekiwah Adler-Belendez, who from the confines of cerebral palsy embraces life of the spirit in words; Frank X Walker whose work Affrilachia created a movement of identity for African Americans living in the mountain South; Elizabeth Bradfield whose poems engage the tensions between outward perception and experience as these forces shape how we study nature and judge one another; and many more poets, including an array of talented local poets, including Gary Copeland Lilly and Holly Iglesias.
With the support of the North Carolina Arts Council, the North Carolina Humanities Council, the Asheville Area Arts Council, UNCA, Warren Wilson College, The Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, Book Works, Grateful Steps Publishing, Inc, Malaprops Bookstore/Café, and Jubilee!, we look forward to presenting Asheville Wordfest in 2009. Asheville Wordfest is part of The Mountain Area Information Network’s Community Voices citizens journalism project, and as such we invite the community to contribute its voice through donations and volunteer support.

As a community-based poetry festival, Asheville Wordfest invites you to help build it. There are many ways to help. Volunteering time and energy is priceless to us. We also invite you to Sponsor a Poet by donating money for a poet’s meals, lodging and travel. Please find a copy of our Sponsor-a-Poet offering, which allows you to choose how you wish to help. Despite all the generous grants we are still in need of APPROXIMATELY $10,000.00. We believe in the power of community to help.

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Last year, as I did my morning yoga on the first day of the first Asheville Wordfest, I said a prayer in which I was asked for 42 people to attend. By the weekend’s end (you can see pictures at our website www.ashevillewordfest.org) more than a thousand people had come. Many have told me, during the ensuing months, what a transformative experience it was. Thank you for helping us transform once again.

Laura Hope-Gill, Director

SPONSOR A POET
Buy the community a reading by a poet by donating $25-$1000.

Just One For The Festival
Buy a poet breakfast: $10 $50
Buy a poet lunch: $10 $50
Buy a poet dinner: $20 $100
Buy a poet a night’s sleep: $100 $500
Buy a poet a journey: $500
Buy a poet’s reading: $25-$1000 or more

The poets: Specify on your check which poet you wish to sponsor and we will present the poet with a list with your name on it and recognition of how you helped.

Quincy Troupe*
Li-Young Lee*
Valzhnya Mort*
Ross Gay*
Patrick Rosal*
Elizabeth Bradfield
Holly Iglesias
Ekiwah Adler-Belendez *
Pat Riviere-Seel
Gary Copeland Lilley
Lee Ann Brown*
Deborah Kingsland Forest
Doris Davenport
Caroline Mercurio