Oscar Mireles, the City of Madison’s Poet Laureate, and the Madison Public Library are partnering to host a variety of activities to celebrate National Poetry Month beginning Sunday, April 1.
As part of the month’s festivities, daily poetry selections from a variety of writers will be featured on the Madison Public Library website. Poems have been chosen by local librarians, and each person will include a brief explanation for selecting that particular piece.
On April 2, 5:30-7:30 p.m. there will be a new weekly poetry series at Café Coda curated by Oscar Mireles and organized by locals poets James Roberts, Charles Payne, Dana Maya Brandi Grayson, Andrea Musher, Jen Rubin, and Chris Chambers.
The following poets, writers and storytellers will be performing over the next two months: Nathan J. Reid, Matthew Charles, Angelica Engel, TS Banks, Araceli Esparza, Matthew Guenette, Justice Castaneda, Jacki Martindale, Mary Schiff, Gene Delcourt, Esty Dinur, Brendon Panke, Charles Payne, Haywood Simmons, Kevin Wilmott II, Ingrid Andersson, Nicholas Gulig, Shoshauna Shy, Ryan Browne, Poet Fabu, Nydia Rojas, Jolieth Mcintosh.
Members of the public are invited to a special National Poetry Month kick off at Central Library on Saturday, April 6, 2-3 p.m. Guests will enjoy a reception followed by special poetry readings from Poet Laureate of Wisconsin Margaret “Peggy” Rozga,; as well as former Poet Laureates Fabu, Andrea Musher, John Tuschen and Wendy Vardaman and current City of Madison Poet Laureate, Oscar Mireles.
Oscar Mireles and the former Poet Laureates of Madison have had poetry embedded in the sidewalks on Monroe Street. A reception will be held on Wednesday, April 10, at 5:30 p.m. at the Monroe Street Library, 1705 Monroe St.
Mireles will read one of his poems to open the Madison Common Council meeting on Tuesday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m. Madison’s Poet Laureate says that he hopes this act reinforces a mood of civility in discourse: Reading a poem prior to the meeting acknowledges and reminds us of the complexities of experience, language and truth, heightening everyone’s consciousness of the potency of their words.
