#SplitThisRock2018 Sessions: Gender

 Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2018 invites poets, writers, activists, and dreamers to Washington, DC for three days of poetry, community building, and creative transformation. The festival features readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, parties, activism—opportunities to speak out for justice, build connection and community, and celebrate the many ways poetry can act as an agent for social change.

On-site registration is available every day during the festival at the festival hub: National Housing Center, 1201 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005. A sliding scale of fees is available for full registration, beginning at $200. Student registration (with ID) is $75. One day passes are $85. Two-day passes are $170. 

Full festival schedule with session descriptions is available on the website. The Festival Mobile App is Live! Download the free app  for iOS and Android today for easy access to the schedule, session descriptions, presenter bios, and more! Just search your app store for Split This Rock. 

We are pleased to present a selection of sessions on the themes of gender. 

No F*cks to Give: Women Poets and Dark Humor (Reading)
Presenters: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Kendra DeColo, Erika Meitner, Shara McCallum,
Tyler Mills
Friday, April 20, 11 am - 12:30 pm
American Association of University Women Room 1

No More Masks! 45 Years of Women in Poetry (Panel)
Presenters: Elizabeth Acevedo, Ellen Bass, Sarah Browning, Solmaz Sharif
Thursday, April 19, 3:30 - 5 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room 102

Poetics in the Wake of Sexual, Gendered, and Inherited Violence (Panel)
Presenters: Marina Blitshteyn, Cathy Linh Che, Lynn Melnick, Tanya Paperny,
Chet'la Sebree
Friday, April 20, 1:30-3 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Memorial Hall

Carved from the Rock: WOC Poets on Expanding Sanctuary (Reading)
Presenters: Mahogany Browne, Yesenia Montilla, Cynthia Oka, Seema Reza
Saturday, April 21, 1:30-3 pm
National Housing Center Room D

Enlarging Poetics: Writing the Fat Body (Reading)
Presenters: Aaron Apps, Jessica Rae Bergamino, Diamond Forde, Jennifer Jackson Berry, Sade LaNay (fka Murphy), Kara van de Graaf, Rachel Wiley
Saturday, April 21, 11 am-12:30 pm
Charles Sumner School, Room 102

Holding Space Beyond the Page: Black Women Writers on Solidarity (Panel)
Presenters: Destiny Birdsong, April Gibson, Kateema Lee, Maya Marshall
Saturday, April 21, 11 am-12:30 pm
National Housing Center Room D

When I Enter: Black Queer Femme Sex, Resistance, and Survival (Reading) 
Presenters: M. Saida Agostini, Xandria Phillips, Casey Lynne Rocheteau, Alison C. Rollins
Saturday, April 21, 11 am-12:30 pm
National Housing Center Room B


Writing from Where We Are: Race, Queerness, and Bearing Witness (Workshop)
Presenters: Kali Boehle-Silva and Bianca Vazquez
Saturday, April 21, 1:30-3 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room G-3 

How Split This Rock Measures Up: Gender

The recent VIDA count of the Best American series got us thinking: we claim to value diversity. How are we measuring up when it comes to gender?

At the 2008 festival, we had 28 featured poets. Of these, 2 were unable to attend, Lucille Clifton and Sharon Olds. Of the remaining 26 features, 12 were women (46%)

At the 2010 festival, we had 26 featured poets. Of these, 1 was unable to attend, Bruce Weigl. Of the remaining 25 features, 12 were women (48%)

For our 2012 festival, we have 7 confirmed poets, of which 6 are women (85%).

In our ongoing reading series, Sunday Kind of Love, we presented 91 poets between 2006 and 2010. Of these poets, 54 were women (59%).

In our Poem of the Week Series, we have posted 83 poems on this blog. 45 of these poems have been by women (54%)

So what does all this actually mean? For us at Split This Rock, it means that we are working toward our intent: To call poets to a greater role in public life and to bring the vital, important, challenging poetry of witness that is being written by American poets today to a larger and more diverse audience.

When we provide poets of both/all genders with a platform, we provide audiences with a way to hear and see multiple points of view. We provide audiences with diverse interests diverse speakers. When people see themselves reflected in who is speaking or writing, they may pay more attention to the language. And the language is what matters, what we believe can change the world.

Contemporary poets and other writers are telling the story of what it means to be alive today. But when women writers are slighted – in publications, prestigious readings, contests, teaching jobs, and the like – the experience of the majority of us is not reaching a wide audience. This significantly narrows the culture’s understanding of itself and reinforces the male perspective as the central one. We want young women to see our poets and think, "I have something to say, too. And I can say it. If she can speak, so can I." We want all people to be empowered by poetry, and that means thinking critically about who we uphold, who we feature, who we post, and who we read.

VIDA's stats reveal biases that we all need to examine within ourselves; even if our conversations aren't about gender, even if gender is not a criterion we examine, we still need think carefully about our assumptions.