The Magic City Poetry Festival 2022 Schedule
Click on the images or the registration buttons to register for these events.
Every event is free and open to the public.
Poetry is for absolutely everyone.
Join the Friends of Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Magic City Poetry Festival for a leisurely guided walking tour through the Birmingham Botanical Gardens while you enjoy the works of four Alabama poets. Visitors are encouraged to join the fun as they encounter brief poetry readings between short strolls (five to ten minutes long). Poets include Salaam Green, Halley Cotton, Matt Layne and the 2022 Magic City Poetry Festival Eco-Poetry Fellow, Nabila Lovelace. Nabila serves as the Earth Poet; she will be partnered with the National Parks Service and the Birmingham National Civil Rights Monument. No registration required.
Come to the Majesty Lounge as we celebrate spoken word poetry during National Poetry Month. Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones will moderate a forum discussing spoken word's role in American Poetry with performances by national spoken word artist Theresa Tha Songbird and Majesty Lounge's beloved power couple B.Royalty. This is a Magic City Poetry Festival event, in partnership with the Alabama Humanities Alliance.
Because Magic City Poetry Festival believes in building community around poetry at the grassroots, we created a reading series that encourage poets to reach across the state and in their towns to create a shared platform for poetry and the celebration of Alabama's living contemporary literature.
This time, Alabama writer Jason McCall will be emceeing the event.
For each All Over Alabama Reading, the readers will be paid an honoraria by Magic City Poetry Festival. All three readers will be paid the same amount, regardless of their publication history, platform, and/or access. Join us.
Join us for an evening with award winning poet, Taylor Byas. Sponsored by PEN America Birmingham.
Taylor Byas is a Black poet and essayist. Originally from Chicago, she moved to Alabama for six years, where she received both her Bachelor’s degree in English and her Master’s degree in English (Creative Writing concentration) from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Taylor currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio where she is a third year PhD student and Albert C. Yates Scholar at the University of Cincinnati studying poetry. She is also an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus.
She has received five Pushcart and six Best of the Net nominations, and has won a Best Microfiction Award. She is also the 1st Place Winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway Contest, the 2020 Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets, the 2021 Adrienne Rich Poetry Award, a finalist for the 2020 Frontier OPEN Prize, and an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Ninth Letter Literary Award in Poetry.
Her chapbook, Bloodwarm, is out now from Variant Lit (2021). Her second chapbook, Shutter, is forthcoming from Madhouse Press in March of 2022. Her debut full-length poetry collection, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, is forthcoming from Soft Skull Press in the Spring of 2023.
You are invited to the public viewing of the award-winning documentary, "GRAFFICA". This free public event will take place Saturday, April 23rd, 2022 from 4:30- 6:30 pm, during National Poetry Month, in conjunction with and funded in part by, the 2022 Magic City Poetry Festival (founded by Alabama Poet Laureate Ashely M. Jones). The evening will be hosted by national Trainer and Activist, T. Marie King, and will include live performances by Artists from the film; distinguished African Drum Company, Sahi Ohn Ko Djony, choreography for dancers from the Alabama School of Fine Arts by world renowned Choreographer and ASFA Dance Instructor, Germaul Barnes, a short talk/performance from Artist/Creator/Director, Yogi Dada. And original poetry performances by local Birmingham Students.
The evening will conclude with a short Q & A session.
*Covid protocol will be in place with temperature checks at the door, social distance seating, and masks will be required.
"Graffica" was produced and funded in part by the Dorothy Jemison Day Theater of Birmingham, AL.
Join us for a night of poetry and storytelling hosted by MCPF Director of Community Engagement Laura Secord and poet extraordinaire Caleb Calhoun. This special Poetry Month edition of Untethered will feature board members of the Magic City Poetry Festival Ashley M. Jones, Alina Stefanescu, L. Lamar Wilson, and Shaunteka LaTrese. Poet Jamil will also feature. This is a free event, so come out and enjoy some poetry and purchase libations from Ferus Artisan Ales, located at 101 Beech St Suite111, Trussville, AL 35173. See you there!
Re-imagine writing about family history and personal history in a way that honors your voice and memory. This workshop will ask you to dive into fragmented memories and incomplete histories in order to help you create a method for telling these stories through poetry. Registration is required. Sign up online or by calling 205-444-7820.
Instructor Alina Stefanescu is a local writer/poet and co-chair of the Magic City Poetry Festival (held annually during the month of April). She has several published books of poetry, the latest of which is Dor.
Beginning at the historic St Paul's UMC Church, where movement organizing took place, participants will walk through the Historic Civil Rights District and listen to poets share their work addressing civil rights and social justice at a selection of historic sites. No registration required.