Slash Pine Press is taking poetry out of the classroom and into the community for all to enjoy Friday and Saturday at the fourth annual Slash Pine Writers Festival.
The festival will feature authors with a variety of experience, from undergraduates to published writers. Student writers and faculty advisors from The University of Alabama, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Montevallo, Stillman College and the University of New Orleans will be featured alongside members of UA faculty and several Slash Pine poets. The featured writers have been published by Slash Pine, Southern Review and DIAGRAM among others.
“The festival is one way we bring the work of rising writers to UA and the Tuscaloosa community,” Patti White, Slash Pine spokesperson, said. “It is part of our mission to support and foster creative writing and also to engage with words in various kinds of spaces.”
Books by the writers will also be available for purchase at the festival, along with an anthology of works by all the featured writers.
The subject and aesthetics of the poetry read at the festival will be as diverse as the writers themselves, ranging in style from traditional to experimental.
The festival will take place both on campus and off. An undergraduate reading will take place at 4 p.m. on Gorgas House Lawn on Oct. 12. The festival will continue Saturday with a reading at Gorgas Library at 10 a.m., at Green Bar at 2:30 p.m. and at Mellow Mushroom at 7:30 p.m.
For Abraham Smith, the festival director, the significance of the festival is that it moves poetry off campus and allows the creative community to extend beyond campus into the Tuscaloosa community.
“When those two worlds [on campus and community] can come together and build a communal spirit that, to me, is the essence of what poetry can do,” Smith said. “Through poetry we can move closer together as a community.”
Slash Pine intern Alexandra Franklin, who will be presenting some of her own poetry at the festival, said the opportunity to read her work aloud as well as the energy and feedback she receives disprove the idea that creative writing is a solitary activity.
“[Slash Pine] seeks to promote community arts, to encourage people to think of artistic expression as something that works best when it involves a group of like-minded people,” Franklin said. “It proves that poetry isn’t always a solitary, ivory tower pursuit.”
Extensive academic knowledge of poetry is not needed to enjoy the festival. Smith said the live performances are not meant to be an analytical endeavor that intimidates many but rather a release through which to enjoy poetry.
“Something about when a poem is performed aloud can release us from that anxiety of analysis, and we can just be together and hear heterogeneous voices,” Smith said.
Franklin agreed that although reading poetry is a great experience, hearing poetry read aloud gives the work more dimension and gives insight to the poet’s interpretation of his or her own work.
“A great deal of poetry is more effective when read aloud than it is on the page,” she said. “So much of poetry is based on sonic patterns, rhythms and emotional energy, and it’s thrilling to be privy to a poet’s public interpretation of those intensely personal elements.”
