{{Short description, American national nonprofit organization of poets, artists, and activists
Split This Rock is a national nonprofit organization of poets, artists, and activists based in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
The organization's stated goals are: To celebrate the
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
of provocation and witness being written, published, and performed in the United States today; and to call poets to a greater role in public life and to equip them with the tools they need to be effective advocates in their communities and in the nation.
In pursuit of these goals, the organization held its first poetry festival in March 2008 in Washington, D.C., which featured four days of poetry readings, workshops, walking tours, and a march to
The White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
. More than 300 people participated in the full festival, with some 2,000 people visiting one or more of the festival readings or other events.
Featured poets included: Chris August,
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca (born January 2, 1952) is an American poet, memoirist, and screenwriter from New Mexico.
Early life and education
Baca was born in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952. Abandoned by his parents at the age of two, he lived ...
,
Coleman Barks
Coleman Barks (born April 23, 1937) is an American poet, and former literature faculty at the University of Georgia. Although he neither speaks nor reads Persian, he is a popular interpreter of Rumi, rewriting the poems based on other English ...
,
Dennis Brutus
Dennis Vincent Brutus (28 November 1924 – 26 December 2009) was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games due to its racial policy of apartheid.
...
, Kenneth Carroll,
Grace Cavalieri
Grace Cavalieri is an American poet, playwright, and radio host of the Library of Congress program '' The Poet and the Poem''. In 2019, she was appointed the tenth Poet Laureate of Maryland.
Education
* BS - Education: English and History, The ...
,
Mark Doty
Mark Doty (born August 10, 1953) is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work ''My Alexandria.'' He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.
Early life
Mark Doty was born in Maryville, Tennessee to Lawrence an ...
,
Martín Espada
Martín Espada (born 1957) is a Puerto Rican-American poet, and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.
Life and career
Espada was born ...
, Brian Gilmore,
Carolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché (born April 28, 1950) is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work.
Biography
Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louis ...
,
Galway Kinnell
Galway Mills Kinnell (February 1, 1927 – October 28, 2014) was an American poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1982 collection, ''Selected Poems'' and split the National Book Award for Poetry with Charles Wright. From 1989 to 19 ...
,
Stephen Kuusisto
Stephen Kuusisto is an American poet who is known for his work on depicting disabilities, specifically blindness. He is a professor at Syracuse University, where he teaches poetry and creative non-fiction. He also directs the Interdisciplinary Pr ...
,
Semezdin Mehmedinović
Semezdin Mehmedinović (born 1960 in Kiseljak is a Bosnian writer and magazine editor.
After studying Librarianship and Comparative Literature in Sarajevo, he worked as an editor of "Lica" and "Valter" magazines, which served as a voice of opposi ...
Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye ( ar, نعومي شهاب ناي; born March 12, 1952) is an American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poetry at the age of six. In total ...
,
Alix Olson
Alix L. Olson (born 1975) is an American poet who works exclusively in spoken word. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1997 and uses her work to address issues of capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, misogyny, and patria ...
,
Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Suskin Ostriker (born November 11, 1937) is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Powell C.S. (1994) ''Profile: Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker – A Marriage of Science and Art'', Scientific American 271(3), 28-3 ...
Susan Tichy
Susan Elizabeth Tichy (born 25 April 1952, in Washington, D.C.) is an American poet.
Life
She received a B.A. from Goddard College and an M.A. from the University of Colorado, and is a Full Professor at George Mason University, where she has tau ...
,
Pamela Uschuk
Pamela Uschuk is an American poet, and 2011 Visiting Poet at University of Tennessee. She won a 2010 American Book Award, for ''Crazy Love: New Poems''.
Life
Born in 1953 and raised on a farm in Michigan, she received her B.A. In English (''cum ...
, and
Belle Waring
Belle may refer to:
* Belle (''Beauty and the Beast'')
* Belle (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
* Belle (surname), a list of people
Brands and enterprises
* Belle Air, a former airline with headquarters in Tirana, Albania
...
.
Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936 – February 13, 2010) was an American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979 to 1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. Clifton was a finalist twice for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
Lif ...
and
Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds (born November 12, 1942) is an American poet. Olds won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
were on the original list of featured poets but could not attend.
Split This Rock's second poetry festival was March 10–13, 2010, in Washington, DC's U Street neighborhood. Featured poets for the 2010 festival were:
Chris Abani
Christopher Abani (born 27 December 1966) is a Nigerian-American and Los Angeles- based author. He says he is part of a new generation of Nigerian writers working to convey to an English-speaking audience the experience of those born and raise ...
,
Lillian Allen
Lillian Allen (born 5 April 1951) is a Canadian dub poet, reggae musician, writer and Juno Award winner.
Biography
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, she left that country in 1969, first moving to New York City, where she studied English at the C ...
,
Sinan Antoon
Sinan Antoon ( ar, سنان أنطون), is an Iraqi poet, novelist, scholar, and literary translator. He has been described as "one of the most acclaimed authors of the Arab world." He is an associate professor at the Gallatin School of Individ ...
,
Francisco Aragón
Francisco Aragón is a Latino poet, editor and writer.
Life
Born in San Francisco, California, Aragón's parents migrated from Nicaragua in the 1950s. is a graduate of Archbishop Riordan High School. He studied at the University of California ...
,
Jan Beatty
Jan Beatty is an American poet. She is a recipient of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and the Creative Achievement Award in Literature.
Life
Born in 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she received her Bac ...
Martín Espada
Martín Espada (born 1957) is a Puerto Rican-American poet, and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.
Life and career
Espada was born ...
,
Andrea Gibson
Andrea Gibson (born August 13, 1975) is an American poet and activist from Calais, Maine, who has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1999. Gibson's poetry focuses on gender norms, politics, social reform, and LGBTQ topics.
Personal life
Gibson ...
,
Allison Hedge Coke
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke is an American poet and editor. Her debut book, ''Dog Road Woman'', won the American Book Award and was the first finalist of the Paterson Poetry Prize and Diane DeCora Award. Since then, she has written five more books ...
, Natalie Illum,
Fady Joudah
Fady Joudah is a Palestinian-American poet and physician. He is the 2007 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition for his collection of poems ''The Earth in the Attic''.
Life
Joudah was born in Austin, Texas in 1971 to Palestinian r ...
Jeffrey McDaniel
Jeffrey McDaniel (born 1967) is an American poet. He has published six books of poetry, most recently ''Holiday in the Islands of Grief'' (University of Pittsburgh Press). He is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National End ...
Nancy Morejón
Nancy Morejón (born 1944 in Havana) is a Cuban poet, critic, and essayist. She was a recipient of the Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Award. She is "the best known and most widely translated woman poet of post-revolutionary Cuba".
Biograp ...
,
Mark Nowak
Mark Nowak is an American poet, as well as cultural critic, playwright and essayist, from Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at ...
Arthur Sze
Arthur Sze (; ; born December 1, 1950) is an American poet, translator, and professor. Since 1972, he has published ten collections of poetry. Sze's ninth collection ''Compass Rose'' (2014) was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Sz ...
, and
Quincy Troupe
Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr. (born July 22, 1939) is an American poet, editor, journalist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla, California. He is best known as the biographer of Miles Davis, the jazz music ...
.
Bruce Weigl
Bruce Weigl (born January 27, 1949, Lorain, Ohio) is an American contemporary poet whose work engages profoundly with experience of both Americans and Vietnamese during and after the Vietnam war.
Biography
Weigl enlisted in the United States Arm ...
was on the list of featured poets but was unable to attend.
The third festival was held in March 2012.