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100,000 Poets & Artists for Change 2015 Categories: Official JB Events Timelines: Just Buffalo History (2010s)

100,000 Poets and Artists for Change 2015 - Just Buffalo Literary Center

Where: Various locations around Buffalo, NY
Date: September 26, 2015

Just Buffalo Literary Center is proud to announce 100,000 Poets & Artists for Change on Saturday, September 26, 2015. On this one day, over 100,000 poets and artists from around the world gather to promote social, environmental and political change.

THIS YEAR’S EVENTS

Where:
Riverside Park
2607 Niagara Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 7:07 a.m.–7:47 a.m.

River Interstate Sunrise
Featuring: Joe Hall

7:07 a.m. is when the sun will rise in Buffalo. It’s also when we’ll begin River Interstate Sunrise, an open reading where anyone is welcome to come and read a poem of haiku length or shorter at any time between 7:07 a.m. and 7:47 a.m.

The reading will take place on a tow path just south of Riverside Park, between I-190 and the Niagara River. Directions: From Riverside Park, take the Irene K. Gardner Pedestrian Bridge over I-190. The bridge is located on Niagara Street, across from the ice rink and swimming pool parking lot. Once across, follow the tow path 30 about 50 yards until you find poets.

There will be coffee.

Where:
Burchfield Penney Art Center
1300 Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Part of Buffalo Humanities Festival
Cyrano Becomes CyranA (11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.)
Featuring Doug Zschiegner and Niagara University Actors
A Shakespearean Gender-Bender (1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.)
Featuring Shakespeare in Delaware Park
Romeo and Juliet & Twelfth Night (3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.)
Featuring Presenting Jimmy Janowski! (Jimmy Janowski and Anthony Chase)

Are we bound by gender? With presentations, performances, and conversations, the 2015 Buffalo Humanities Festival will attempt to answer that question by going beyond the traditional oppositions of male/female and gay/straight. Some experts claim that we live in a “post-gender” era, with stay-at-home dads, female CEOs, and transgendered characters on TV. Yet history, literature, music, and the arts suggest that the story of gender is more complicated—and more interesting—than we often take it to be.

Join us September 23–26 for a festival of mind-bending ideas. The complete schedule and ticket information for the Buffalo Humanities Festival can be found at buffalohumanities.org.

Where:
Elmwood-Bidwell Farmers Market (Outside Talking Leaves Books)
Bidwell Parkway & Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 10:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Short Order Poems for Change
Featuring: Robin Lee Jordan & Just Buffalo Writing Center Young Writers

Young writers from the Just Buffalo Writing Center will type made-to-order poems on the theme of change on vintage typewriters. Setting up near Talking Leaves at the corner of Bidwell and Elmwood during the Elmwood-Bidwell Farmers Market, passersby are invited to request a poem in exchange for a monetary donation. Proceeds will go to the Massachusetts Avenue Project.

Where:
Villa Maria College Felician Hall
240 Pine Ridge Road
Buffalo, NY 14225
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

A Poetry Reading

A poetry reading will include students and faculty, a group from Olean, and any others who wish to read on the Buffalo-Cheektowaga border. And perhaps . . . some music?

Where:
Rust Belt Books (in front of the store)
415 Grant Street
Buffalo, NY 14213
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 1:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.

Open Street Potency
Featuring: OPEN TO ALL

A microphone will be placed outside on the sidewalk for any form of expression as it occurs throughout the day.

Where:
Rust Belt Books
415 Grant Street
Buffalo, NY 14213
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 2:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.

Featuring: Adam Drury & Greenlee Brown as “Dog Model” | Poet RE Katz | Sound Artist Transfer in Jamaica (Jesse Miller) | Buffalo Community Poets | UB Poetics Grad Students | Random Street Performers/Performances | + spontaneous collaborations between and among

This 100k event celebrates openness, autonomy, and spontaneity: no set schedules, no “program.” Poets, artists, and players will inhabit the performance space at Rust Belt Books from 2:00 p.m. to 8 p.m., spilling out into the street, cavorting through adjacent alleys reading poems, setting poetry to punk, psyche, soul, and electronic music, mesmerizing with soundscapes, and blistering the mind with fierce verse.

Where:
Himalayan Institute
841 Delaware Avenue
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 2:00 p.m.–3:30 p.m.

Loosen Up: Yoga for Poets and Poetry Lovers
Featuring: Sherry Robbins

Come celebrate the 2015 global event 100,000 Poets for Change with a little yoga. Poet and yoga teacher Sherry Robbins will lead a beginner’s yoga class to loosen up joints, muscles, and attitudes cramped from too much sitting, typing, reading and worrying.

Bring your favorite short poem to share at the beginning of class. Wear comfortable clothes. No yoga experience necessary. As there will be other classes in progress, we ask that you come on time and enter fairly quietly.

Limited space available! Please register in advance by emailing Sherry Robbins at sherry.robbins@gmail.com.

Where:
Bidwell Park
Bidwell Parkway & Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.

Featuring: The Poets and Community of the Pure Ink Poetry Slam

This will be a public style of Guerilla Poetry taking place at Bidwell Park. Poets will simply bring their voices and words and will share their poetry with the community. If you want to join us and read, feel free.

Where:
Buffalo State Writer’s Network Booth @ Project 308 Art Festival
308 Oliver Street
Buffalo, NY 14223
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 3:45 p.m.–4:45 p.m.

A Poetry Reading
Featuring: Ella Marie Elm | Matthew Coleman

Buffalo State Writer’s Network Founder, Rachel LJ, is hosting a poetry reading at the 3rd annual Project 308 Art Festival in North Tonawanda, NY. It’s free and open to the public, located on Oliver Street between Schenk Street and Robinson Street. The reading is outside at her booth from 3:45 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Any poets interested in reading, please contact Rachel AKA Ella Marie Elm at rachelbswn@gmail.com.

Where:
CHANGE OF VENUE: This event will now take place at
Just Buffalo Writing Center
468 Washington @ Mohawk, 2nd floor
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 6:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

Featuring: Aaron Lowinger | Nava Fader | Kevin Thurston | Geoffrey Gatza | Alana Kelley

Two Buffalo publishers, BlazeVox and The Public, team up to present a night of poetry. With a wide range of styles, ranging from lyric to conceptual to performance and back, this reading is surely one not to miss.

Where:
Bright Hill Press & Literary Center
94 Church Street
Treadwell, NY 13846
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 6:30 p.m.–9:00 p.m.

Poetry, Prose & Music

Bright Hill Press & Literary Center is sponsoring a 100,000 Poets & Artists for Change reading at Bright Hill on Saturday, September 26 at 6:30 p.m. The evening will be an open mic event, with all participants invited to sign up and read for 10 minutes. This is a free event (donations welcome), and refreshments will be served. We are inviting poets and writers to read from their work that promotes social, environmental, and political change, as well as musicians to perform that work!

Where:
The New Phoenix Theatre on the Park
95 Johnson Park
Buffalo, NY 14201
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: 8:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.

The Real Thing
Featuring: Eric Rawski | Wendy Hall | Steve Copps | Kristin Bentley Kacala | Jamie Nablo | Jamie O’Neill | PJ Tighe
Director and Artistic Director: Kelli Bocock-Natale
Executive Director: Richard Lambert

We are a not-for-profit small professional theatre company, putting on a production of THE REAL THING by Tom Stoppard—a play about playwriting, the beauty of words, the meaning of them . . . and how they influence culture.

Where: Buffalo, NY and environs (TBA)
Date: September 26, 2015
Time: TBD

CHANGE IS NOW: A DAY OF EVOLUTION / A NIGHT OF TRANSFORMATION
Featuring: Choose Yer Own Adven-Tours | Paula Watkins | Ron Ehmke | Stoney Connors | DJ/VJ Ron D M Key | and countless co-conspirators

This special event is being presented at multiple locations in and around Buffalo, New York on Saturday, September 26, 2015 as part of the global art event 100,000 Poets & Artists for Change. On this one day, over 100,000 poets and artists from around the world will gather to promote social, environmental and political change.

During this one-time-only experience, the AdventourMobile Leprechaun 1.0 (an easily identifiable blue and white recreational vehicle, appropriately grungy for a product of 1995) will be parked at a number of public spaces throughout the afternoon and evening, serving as a “Mobile Change Agent.” At each stop, guests will be allowed the opportunity to transform anything they want about themselves and/or the world around them, in ephemeral fantasy if not always (yet) in long-term actuality.

For example, Paula and Ron can help you:

  • Change your mind.
  • Change your life.
  • Change your luck.
  • Change your diet.
  • Change your clothes.
  • Change your gender.
  • Change your gender orientation.
  • Change your political orientation.
  • Change your spots.
  • Change your stripes.
  • Change the world.

The schedule of stops throughout the day will be posted at www.EverythingRonDoes.com with updates live-tweeted by @RonEhmke and @StoneyConnors. For more information, contact Ron Ehmke at (716) 693-2108 or ronehmke@roadrunner.com.