Registration for Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2014 is Now Open!

We're thrilled to announce that registration is now open for Split This Rock Poetry Festival, March 27-30, 2014. Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2014 invites poets, writers, activists, and dreamers to Washington, DC for four days of poetry, community building, and creative transformation.  Featuring readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, parties, and activism, the festival offers opportunities to speak out for justice, build connection and community, and celebrate the many ways poetry can act as an agent for social change. The fourth biennial festival will take place March 27-30, 2014, in Washington, DC. Click here to register today. Only $85 if you register by Februrary 1. And only $45 for students. We know it's going to be an extraordinary four days. More information is below and on the website. We hope you'll consider making a donation when you register, too, to help others attend. You'll be prompted on the registration page.  Finally, please help us spread the word - scroll down for ways you can help. Thank you! We can't wait to see you in March! Split This Rock

Top 10 Reasons to Join Us for  Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2014:       Passionate voices for justice & peace - Where else are you going to hear readings by 16 of the most artistically vibrant and important poets writing today (Pulitzer Prize winners, slam champions, Yale Younger poets...) all on the same stage? See video from 2012 here.  OK, here they are - Sheila Black, Franny Choi, Eduardo C. Corral, Gayle Danley, Natalie Diaz, Joy Harjo, Maria Melendez Kelson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dunya Mikhail, Shailja Patel, Wang Ping, Claudia Rankine, Tim Seibles, Myra Sklarew, Danez Smith, and Anne Waldman. Read their bios here.  Compelling conversations - Panels this year on rethinking the city, publishing in Spanish, poetry & the environmental crisis, classroom politics, and lots more essential topics. Workshops for your mind, body & spirit - Make poetry broadsides, stretch your body and mind, write about race and across race, learn strategies for strengthening your craft and your social justice practice. Read about them all here. Group readings! - Themed group readings by women veterans, Vietnamese American poets, Latinos living in the Heartland, and many more. Voices of the future - Youth poets will read, lead writing workshops, teach participants how to nurture youth voices in their own communities, and generally school the grownups on kicking ass and taking names. Poetry in the streets - With our world crying out for equity and justice, poets will take to the streets with the imaginative and transformative power of poetry. Watch video of previous street action here. Only $85! - That's right, all this for the early-bird rate of only $85. Register today! On February 1 the rate goes up to $120. Click here to save today. Students are only $45 - And scholarships and group rates are available. We want everyone to be able to attend, regardless of ability to pay. Details are here. New locations! - This year the festival will be clustered in the Farragut Square neighborhood of downtown DC, the heart of the capital's social justice community - events will be at the headquarters of major labor unions and organizations working for peace, justice, and environmental change. All within very easy walking distance of one another and the Metro and bus lines. So many more reasons, too - Meet up with old friends, make new connections in poetry and activist circles, explore and celebrate the ways that poetry can be an agent for change, read and perform at open mics... Four days of transformative events in our nation's capital! Help Spread the Word!    Post this announcement to your Facebook, Twitter, or blog. Send post cards to your friends and colleagues and/or leave stacks at libraries, cafes, and bookstores. Contact Camisha Jones to get a stack: camisha@splitthisrock.org.  Teach? A student? Have your institution sponsor a group of students for a special group rate. Contact Camisha at the email above or 202-787-5210. Want to sponsor? It's a great way to support the festival and get lots of visibility with leaders in the literary and social justice worlds. Contact Sarah Browning at browning@splitthisrock.org for more information. Other ideas? Contact Camisha or Sarah - we'd love your help! Poetry Magazine &  Split This Rock Collaborate Split This Rock and Poetry magazine announce a collaboration: A special portfolio in the March 2014 issue of Poetry, with new poems by poets to be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2014. Timed to coincide with Split This Rock's fourth biennial national festival, the portfolio will be co-edited by Poetry editor Don Share and Split This Rock Executive Director Sarah Browning, with an introduction by Browning. The portfolio will also be the focus of the magazine's monthly podcast. Poetry, founded in 1912, is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Subscribe to the magazine here.