{{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.
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 ...
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 Northwest, Washington, D.C., NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. preside ...
. 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
Christopher August Megert (born March 20, 1982) is an American Contemporary Christian musician who performs under the stage name Chris August.
August began recording as a secular musician before switching to Christian music. His song "Starry Nig ...
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 a ...
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 P ...
,
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 ...
,
E. Ethelbert Miller
Eugene Ethelbert Miller, best known as E. Ethelbert Miller (born November 20, 1950), is an African-American poet, teacher and literary activist, based in Washington, DC.Hayley Garrison Phillips"Local Legend E. Ethelbert Miller Isn't Going Anywher ...
,
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 ...
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 ...
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.
L ...
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 rai ...
,
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 ...
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 Californ ...
Cornelius Eady
Cornelius Eady (born 1954) is an American writer focusing largely on matters of Race (classification of human beings), race and society. His poetry often centers on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and societal problems stemming from questi ...
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 book ...
, Natalie Illum, Fady Joudah, Toni Asante Lightfoot,
Richard McCann
Richard John McCann (December 12, 1949 – January 24, 2021) was an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He lived in Washington, D.C., where he was a longtime professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at American University ...
Lenelle Moïse
Lenelle Moïse (born c. 1980) is a poet, actress and playwright born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Currently based in the United States, she performs at colleges throughout the country, presenting work about race, gender, class, immigration and sexual ...
,
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".
Biograph ...
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 was on the list of featured poets but was unable to attend.
The third festival was held in March 2012.