Slash Pine Poetry Festival Brings Verse, Music to UA, Community

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Slash Pine Poetry Festival, featuring more than 40 national and regional poets and authors performing two days of readings, will be Friday, April 23, and Saturday, April 24, at Woods Quad on The University of Alabama campus, as well as venues in Tuscaloosa and Northport.

“The festival highlights the public and democratic nature of creative work, refusing to privilege one form or aesthetic over another, and presenting diverse voices in non-traditional, communally accessible spaces,” says Joseph P. Wood, a UA instructor in English and organizer for the event.

In addition to Woods Quad, locations for festival readings will be the Kentuck Art Center courtyard in Northport; the Black Warrior Model Railroad Society’s outdoor portico in Northport; Little Willies Club in Tuscaloosa; and the Bama Theatre lobby in Tuscaloosa.

Writers scheduled to participate in the event include Sue Brannan Walker, Jeanie Thompson, Dr. Hank Lazer, Dave Brinks, Adam Clay, Chad Sweeney and Michael Mejia.

The events will be:

Friday, April 23: 7-10 p.m.: Poetry reading, preceded by musician Ethan Gardiner, Kentuck Arts Center Courtyard, Northport. (If it rains, the event will take place inside the Kentuck multi-use studio.)

Saturday, April 24: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., poetry reading, Woods Quad, UA. (If it rains, the event will take place in the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, University of Alabama.)

3 p.m.- 5:30 p.m., poetry reading, Little Willies Club, 2209 Fourth St., Tuscaloosa.

6:30p.m.-9:30 p.m.: Barbecue, Blues, Conversation, & Poetry, Historic Northport Depot/Black Warrior Model Railroad Society, 725 25th Ave. Northport.

6:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m: Barbecue and blues music sponsored by the Alabama Blues Project. The public is invited to come and mingle with the festival writers.  Poetry reading 7:30-9:30 p.m. (If it rains, the dinner and reading will take place inside the Kentuck multi-use studio.)

10:30 p.m-1 a.m.: Poetry reading, Bama Theater, 600 Greensboro Ave, Tuscaloosa.

Support for the festival is provided by the Alabama Council of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Alabama Humanities Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Tuscaloosa Council on the Arts, UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Creative Writing Program, the department of English, New College, Honors College, Union Programming and the Creative Campus Initiative. For details, phone 205/348-5065 or go to www.slashpinepress.com.

UA’s College of Arts and Sciences is the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.