SJSU Hosts Poetry Fest With Slam, Pulitzer Prize Winner Talk

SAN JOSE, CA -- Adolescent angst aside, a poetry lover will find the art form has grown up this week during San Jose State University's Legacy of Poetry Festival: Water and Fire starting Wednesday. The festival hosted by the Poets and Writers Coalition celebrates National Poetry Month and Earth Day Week.

This year’s festival keynote poets are: Forrest Gander, who has just received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Arthur Sze, whose recent poetry collection Compass Rose, was short-listed
for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize.

The premise of the poetry festival centers on the human experience being bound by and dependent on water and fire. Poets have addressed the many threats these elements play in the future survival of life on Earth as we know it. In celebration of SJSU’s Earth Day Week, the university will host poetry readings by local community and campus poets as well as Pulitzer Prize finalists that raise questions about the sustainability of these resources.

The festival’s poetry readings and its “Symposium on Water and Fire: The Poetics of a
Warming Planet” features a conversation between the keynote speakers and SJSU faculty meteorologists Craig Clements and Eugene Cordero, who will focus much needed attention on these important public issues.

The symposium is scheduled on Thursday from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the SJSU Engineering Building. All events scheduled for the Legacy of Poetry Festival: Water and Fire are free and open to the public.

As part of the festival, there will be campus-wide Haiku writing project where students and other members of the SJSU community will be invited to contribute Haikus on the subjects of water and fire to the Legacy of Poetry: Water and Fire Haiku blog. A Haiku is short-form Japanese poetry.

On Friday, the festival will present the Water and Fire Poetry Slam, where participants will perform their poems or spoken-word pieces that address the problems associated with the warming planet through reflections on the elements of water and fire. The top three winners will receive prizes.

The poetry slam will be hosted by Mighty Mike McGee and judged by local luminaries poets and performers: Asha Sudra, David Perez and Scorpiana.

Legacy of poetry festival events schedule:

April 17: 4:15 - 6 p.m.: Legacy of Poetry Day Reading, with SJSU student, faculty, staff, and alumni poets reading with poets from the Silicon Valley community addressing the “Water and Fire” theme. Featuring: Mighty Mike McGee, Santa Clara County Poet Laureate; Lisa Rosenberg, San Mateo CountyPoet Laureate emeritus; Rachelle Escamilla, “Poetita,” KKUP Radio host. MLK Library, 225 - 229. Freeand open to the public.

April 17, 7 p.m.: Keynote Poetry Reading, featuring Pulitzer Prize finalists, Forrest Gander and Arthur Sze. Also with Sally Ashton, Santa Clara County Poet Laureate emeritus, and Michael Tod Edgerton. MLK Library, 225 - 229. Free and open to the public.

April 18, noon: Symposium on Water and Fire: Poetics of a Warming Planet. Featuring
conversation between keynote poets Forrest Gander and Arthur Sze, with and SJSU Meteorologists Dr. Eugene Cordero and Dr. Craig Clements. Engineering Auditorium. Free and open to the public.

April 19: 4 p.m.: Water and Fire Poetry Slam, featuring MC Mighty Mike McGee and with special
guests. Uchida Hall Auditorium rm. 124. Free and open to the public.