Wonder City Wordfest 2019 took place on April 27 and was a huge success with special guest Joy Harjo.
Wonder City Wordfest is an annual celebration of poetry and community that began in 2014 as the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry’s ROMPfest. In 2017, the festival moved to Wonder City Coffee and changed its name. The day includes a variety of ways for people of all ages to stretch their creativity and be inspired by the beauty, joy and value of poetry within community.
Awesome photos of the event by Byron Totty can be viewed below!
Big Read Photo Slideshow
Mark your calendars now for Wonder City Wordfest 2020:
April 11, 2020
The details below are from the 2019 festival, so you can get an idea of what it and future festivals will be like.
Wonder City Wordfest 2019
Onyx Coffee Bag Art Challenge!
Wonder City Coffee, where the festival is held, is proud to use beans from Onyx Coffee Lab, Springdale, AR. For the 2nd year, we are issuing a special word art challenge for this year’s festival. Take one of the empty 5-lb bags that we have at the coffee shop and make something creative from it to enter in the contest. More DETAILS HERE.
SCHEDULE
Dawn to Dusk: Museum Tours
The museum will be open all day for tours and special writing activities.
10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.: Author/Book Fair
Come celebrate the power of the written word by visiting with local authors and buying their books, too!
10:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Juice Box Jams
Join Sarah Spurrier in a Juice Box Jams specially designed for Wordfest. JBJ is especially designed for pre-school kids but older ones will enjoy the stories, poems, music and movement, too.
10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.: Poem Fortunes
When you can catch her, get a Poem Fortune written on the spot for you from ROMP director Shaun Perkins.
11:00-12:30 p.m.: Pastry & Poetry Competition
Sample the pastries that will be competing for a prize of $200 and WCC gift cards. Cast your vote for the best pastry. Write a poem about one of the pastries and win the poetry prize! Our pastry judge this year is Jimmie Tramel, Tulsa World writer.
12:45-1:45: Musical Interlude & Poetry w/Canton Little
LG’s own Canton Little will play his keyboard for your afternoon listening pleasure. People are also encourage to read poetry in between songs.
2:00-3:00: Mass Main Street Poetry Read
Join the Locust Grove Arts Alliance in a mass poetry reading being held in conjunction with the Big Read celebration of Joy Harjo’s book How We Became Human. Eighty-five participants will line Main Street and read the poems in Harjo’s book all at once. Each person will have one of the 85 poems in the book to read and at 2:15, everyone will begin reading out loud the poem they have been assigned or chosen. Everyone else is invited to roam up and down the street listening. The poems will be read over and over again until 3:00 p.m. For details or to reserve a poem to read, click HERE.
3:30-5:00 p.m.: WordFest Awards Ceremony & Celebration
Awards for the Oklahoma Poem Contest, Coffee Bag Art Challenge, and Big Read Poetry & Art contests will be given out, and the winners will read their poems. Free cake!
All events take place at Wonder City Coffee, 118 E. Main, and at the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry, 6603 S 438 Rd., Locust Grove.
For more information, contact Shaun Perkins, 918-864-9152, ROMPoetry@gmail.com.
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 