Launching a new, all-day festival after almost a year inside might feel like an over-acceleration, like zero to 150. But on Saturday the Roxbury Poetry Festival presents its inaugural edition of what organizers hope will be a biennial literary event that celebrates the creative musings from Boston artists.
“I think Poetry Festivals are a conduit to bringing all types of poets together,” said artist and educator Tatiana Johnson-Boria, who was tapped by festival organizer and Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola to present a workshop.
“Boston has a reputation of being a heavily segregated city, and I think that bringing together artists and writers — especially those of color, especially black writers — to the forefront is changing that narrative of the city and the people that live here," Johnson-Boria said.
Festivals are nothing without talent, and for this first iteration, the heavy hitters have come to play, thanks to the efforts of Olayiwola and Festival Managers Mariama Savage and Winelle Felix. Workshops and readings dominate the early part of the day’s online festivities (41 speakers have been confirmed so far), but come early evening, 2020 Pulitzer winner Jericho Brown is scheduled to serve up a keynote address. And then the virtual function goes live in Nubian Square.
The return to live performances — you know, the ones featuring people on a stage and people standing next you — includes a Publisher’s Poetry Slam, presented (and filmed) by Button Poetry and hosted by Harlym 125 with relatively high stakes: the winner takes home a book deal.
Beast the Beat is a musical nightcap curated by festival advisor, 2020 Boston Music Awards “DJ of the year,” and self-described purveyor of “social justice trap music,” DJ WHYSHAM. This is a mini-concert designed to tilt the spotlight — once again literal instead of virtual — towards the female hip hop artists of Boston.
“Beast the Beat is special because I love producing, and working with different artists and seeing their craft come to life on stage,” explained DJ WHYSHAM. “We're just bringing different elements out of people.”
The bond between music and poetry isn’t novel. In fact, you could say it’s well established and pretty tight, as demonstrated by scheduled conversation with Candace McDuffie, author of “50 Rappers Who Changed the World.” But in addition to discussions of these concrete ties are workshops exploring abstract expressions, as does “Writing Our Mothers,” a workshop and panel designed to probe the relationship between mother and self.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about motherhood in general,” says Johnson-Boria. She grew up in Roxbury, and decided on these maternal themes as the basis for her workshop. “[It] is a generative journey, where we’re digging into the universe of what relationships with our mothers look like, and how to create poetry out of it.”
Over the past year, we, collectively, have had a lot of practice with virtual arts offerings. And these artists — some of whom are emerging; others well established — have been waiting to show us what they’ve been working on. The poetry festival proves, DJ WHYSHAM said, “Boston got next.”
