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Public poetry project wants to help Wilmington residents be heard

If you could say anything to Wilmington, what would it be?

A public poetry project is coming to Wilmington this weekend.

 

Write Outside Your Window: A Public Poetry Project to Uplift All Voices” takes place at Wilmington’s 7th and West Streets Park this Sunday, April 25.

Delaware Shakespeare, Brevity Bookspace, the Wilmington Alliance and the University of Delaware Partnership for Arts and Cultureare teaming up on the event.

“This project came about as a result of everything that is happening in Wilmington and globally and the silence and the marginalization and the erasure of inner-city residents that happens," said Saliym Cooper, the founder of Brevity Bookspace. "And also about a bit of research that I did about the Antebellum South.”  

Cooper says they want people to answer the question - "If you could say anything to Wilmington, what would it be?" - in a poem using 30 words or less.

Residents can bring those poems to 7th and West Streets Park between 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday.  

 

Those people who do not wish to come out into the public, they can actually submit their poem online via our webform," said Cooper. “ But those who wish to come to our event - it’s going to be a beautiful thing, where we open with a bit of drumming from my father; he’s going to bring his Djembe as a way to kind of unite us and ground our energy before we share any of our work.”

 

Del Shakes artists will perform some poems and three will be selected for display on a billboard in Wilmington this summer for one month each. Three honorable mentions will be displayed in other venues and shared on social media.

Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
 

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.