Having the opportunity to bring poetry programming to Wilco's Solid Sound Festival for the first time was a dream come true for the WanderWord team.
We tasked ourselves with the hefty goal of curating a program of world class poetry while making this challenging material fun and palatable for those with no poetic background. We wanted to bring the power of personal, small group interactions to this 10k person festival crowd while surprising, engaging and enlightening as many people as possible over the 3 day event. In addition, we wanted to produce collaborative art works onsite and to move participants around the large and diverse museum campus.
In conjunction with a greater team of 29 talented cohorts, we planned and executed three programs:
Over the course of three days, our team reached a few thousand people with intense, unexpected and emotional poetry experiences.
We tasked ourselves with the hefty goal of curating a program of world class poetry while making this challenging material fun and palatable for those with no poetic background. We wanted to bring the power of personal, small group interactions to this 10k person festival crowd while surprising, engaging and enlightening as many people as possible over the 3 day event. In addition, we wanted to produce collaborative art works onsite and to move participants around the large and diverse museum campus.
In conjunction with a greater team of 29 talented cohorts, we planned and executed three programs:
- Lost in the Words Poetry Trail: Festival goers followed a trail map to a dozen 'trail stops' - installations scattered throughout the 13 acre grounds. Participants streamed audio on their mobile device and engaged in a prize fueled scavenger hunt.
- Pop-Up Poets (PUPs): Roving bards used the element of surprise to stage energetic, interactive poetry in some of the strangest locations we could find.
- Collaborative Typewriter Poets: Master wordsmiths on antique typewriters forged new works based on input from participants - who walked away with a most unique and meaningful souvenir.
Over the course of three days, our team reached a few thousand people with intense, unexpected and emotional poetry experiences.
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Lost in the Words Poetry Trail Stops:
1. Tera Ragan - wanderword.org/kolo.html 2. Kazim Ali - wanderword.org/carve.html 3. Rita Dove - wanderword.org/ears.html 4. Jeff Tweedy - wanderword.org/foil.html 5. Yuko Otomo - wanderword.org/chaos.html 6. Jon Sands - wanderword.org/sucks.html 7. Mike Watt - wanderword.org/boats.html 8. Victor Hernández Cruz - wanderword.org/trios.html 9. Atsuro Riley - wanderword.org/bees.html 10. Susan Brennan - wanderword.org/wolf.html 11. steve dalachinsky - wanderword.org/listen.html 12. Abraham Smith - wanderword.org/hoohaa.html |
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Special thanks go out to the Poetry Foundation and our other generous sponsors. And thank you to MASS MoCA and Solid Sound Music Festival for inviting us to this amazing event!
