A Poetry Discussion: With Eyes and Soul: Images of Cuba by Nancy Morejón

Split This Rock and The Writer's Center present:

A Poetry Discussion:
With Eyes and Soul: Images of Cuba
by Nancy Morejón
Discussion led by poet and translator
Yvette Neisser Moreno


Wednesday, February 10, 7:00 pm
at Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Library
3160 16th St. N.W., Washington, DC
(at corner of Lamont Street, near Columbia Heights Metro)
202-671-0200
Free and open to the public. The library is
wheelchair-accessible.

With Eyes and Soul is available for purchase for $19 at The Writer's Center (Bethesda) and Busboys and Poets (14th and V Streets NW) or online here. However, advance reading is not necessary. Please join us!! Check out our Facebook Event Page!

Please note, the author will not be at this event. To hear Nancy read, join us at Split This Rock in March!

Patricia Pego Guerra, Representative of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, will provide a brief introduction about Nancy Morejón, her poetry, and the Cuban context.


Nancy Morejón-one of the foremost Cuban writers and intellectuals-will be a featured poet at the 2010 Split This Rock Poetry Festival. With Eyes and Soul features poems by Morejón (Spanish with English translations) and photos by renowned photographer Milton Rogovin, offering a multi-dimensional portrait of the landscape and people of Cuba.




The Writer's Center cultivates the creation, publication, presentation, and dissemination of literary work. We are an independent literary organization with a global reach, rooted in a dynamic community of writers.

For more information: yvettenm at verizon dot net or 240-462-6458

Inspiration for Many Generations

The following is an excerpt from Mendy Knott, a blogger for peace. You can read the full post here

My favorite book by Howard Zinn is a slim volume which you can read in a couple of hours. It's called artists in times of war and other essays published in 2003 in Canada. It is a book to be kept on your shelf and read again and again. He directs his words to the artist, the writer, the poet when he says, "The word transcendent comes to mind when I think of the role of the artist in dealing with the issues of the day. I use that word to suggest that the role of the artist is to transcend conventional wisdom, to transcend the word of the establishment, to transcend the orthodoxy, to go beyond and escape what is handed down by the government or what is said in the media."

I interpret this admonition seriously. We as artists have a duty, a responsibility that comes with our gifts. And that responsibility is to rise above mediocrity, to reject a herd mentality in favor of expressing what we perceive to be the truth, no matter how dangerous, outrageous, or unacceptable to the status quo it may be. I take that responsibility seriously and reading "Artists in Times of War" reminds me of my duty as an artist and activist.

Photo of the Week: Nathaniel Siegel

This feature highlights a different photo each week from the 2008 festival. For more photos from the last festival, check out Split This Rock's Flickr.



An art installation created during the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in 2008 featuring the ages of service members killed in Iraq.

Photo Credit: Jill Brazel

Sarah Browning Reads Lenelle Moise's "Mud Mothers"

From the January 15 Confronting Climate Debt panel at Busboys and Poets Washington D.C. (14th and V) featuring Naomi Klein, Bolivian Ambassador to the UN Pablo Solon and activist/spoken word artist Michele Roberts.

Social Change Book Fair

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness is gearing up for our second festival March 10-13, 2010, in Washington, DC. In addition to readings, panels, workshops, and opportunities to build community across barriers this year, we also want to showcase the significant role of publishers and those who bring us the kinds of writing Split This Rock celebrates: impassioned, visionary, and truth-telling. And we want to bring the critically important work of social change groups to poets, activists, and the public.

With this in mind, we're introducing a Social Change Book Fair to Split This Rock 2010. This will be an opportunity to further our mission of getting the critical work of socially engaged poets, writers, organizations, progressive presses, literary magazines, and independent newspapers the attention of our festival participants.

Won't you join us? The Social Change Book Fair will take place on Saturday, March 13, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, at the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage (the old 12th Street Y) at 1816 12th Street, NW, Washington, DC. Split This Rock workshops and panel discussions will be taking place in the same building, ensuring plenty of foot traffic. The Book Fair will also be free and open to the general public and we will promote it widely.

You can download the form from our website here. The deadline for registration is Monday, February 15, 2010.

Also, we are pleased to announce that Split This Rock's "official" hotel, The Beacon, has extended the reduced rate deadline - book by February 5th to take advantage!

And if you have not already done so, register for the 2010 festival to take advantage of our early-bird rates, good through February 10th.

Please feel free to contact Program Associate Abdul Ali with any questions: ali at splitthisrock dot org or 202-787-5210.

Benefit for Capturing Fire: National Queer Slam and Summit

January 31st
Benefit for Capturing Fire: National Queer Slam and Summit
Featuring Tara Hardy & Tristan Silverman
with "Brothertongue" (Gay Male Poets of DC)
$10 suggested donation

Doors open at 7:30 PM, Show starts at 8:00 PM
@ The Rabbit Room
Studio of Lisa Marie Thalhammer, Thom Flynn, DJ Natty Boom, and Danielle Evennou
52 O St, NW #100
Washington, DC

For more information, e-mail Capturingfire@gmail.com or call Natalie E. Illum at 202.518.8410
Directions: www.ostreetstudios.org

Tristan Silverman is trained as a documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist, business owner, educator, and activist poet Tristan Silverman has become one of the top lecturers, teaching artists and performance poets for subjects ranging from gender, class and the social-political implications of branding identity.

Tara Hardy, a working class queer femme poet who founded Bent, a writing institute for LGBTIQ people in Seattle, WA, holds an MFA from Vermont College. Her work focuses on class, race, sexuality, gender identity, and interpersonal violence.

Register for Split This Rock!

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 10-13, 2010, invites poets, writers, artists, activists, dreamers, and all concerned world citizens to Washington, DC , for poetry, community building, and creative transformation as our country continues to grapple with two wars, a crippling economic crisis, and other social and environmental ills.

The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, parties, and activism -- opportunities to speak out, make common cause, imagine a way forward, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change.

Featuring these visionary voices and many others: Chris Abani, Lillian Allen, Sinan Antoon, Francisco Aragón, Jan Beatty, Martha Collins, Cornelius Eady, Martín Espada, Andrea Gibson, Allison Hedge Coke, Natalie Illum, Fady Joudah, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Richard McCann, Jeffrey McDaniel, Lenelle Moïse, Nancy Morejón, Mark Nowak, Wang Ping, Patricia Smith, Arthur Sze, Quincy Troupe, and Bruce Weigl.

Register today! Rates rise February 10.

Details at: www.SplitThisRock.org