Photo by Chantel Lawrie
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Since its debut in 2011, O, Miami has been on a mission to inspire local residents to get excited about poetry. It’s done many memorable activations over the years, including stitching poems into clothes at local thrift stores and painting poems on the roofs of warehouses for airline passengers to spot on their descent into Miami International Airport.
But you could argue that there’s one O, Miami project that has outlasted all others in terms of its popularity within the community and its impact well outside of it. ZipOdes, launched in 2015 alongside WLRN, asked locals to construct poems based on their ZIP codes, with each number determining the amount of words in each line — a Miami-made haiku, of sorts. The form proved so popular that cities like Boston, Orlando, and Toledo have introduced their own versions of the program.
Now, to mark its tenth anniversary, O, Miami has announced the release of a collection of ZipOdes called Literally Everyone’s Invited: An Ode to South Florida. Edited by photographer Gesi Schilling and author Sarah Trudgeon, the book features poems and photographs from more than 450 South Floridians. The book takes its title from the poem embossed on its cover, a ZipOde to 33147: “My neighborhood is/boring but the/parties/are very fun literally/everyone’s invited no matter who you are.”
The anthology will be released on December 16, with a presale set to go live on Monday, November 24. Copies are also available for purchase at this year’s Miami Book Fair.
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Photo by Chantel Lawrie
O, Miami was founded by P. Scott Cunningham, a poet, author, and former New Times staff member. His mission was simple: to bring poetry to Miami-Dade residents throughout the month of April. It was a runaway success, growing over the years into one of Miami’s largest cultural events.
In 2024, Cunningham announced he was stepping down as the festival’s director, and Melody Santiago Cummings and Caroline Cabrera took the reins.
“Both of us just really felt — knowing what goes into the work we do — that it was a job best tackled by both,” Cummings told New Times then. “We proposed this dual leadership model. Neither of us applied separately because we know that this is the model that will work for this organization.”
One of Cummings and Cabrera’s most noteworthy events since assuming the joint leadership role was this April’s Bad Bunny lookalike contest. Hosted at Roberto Clemente Park in Wynwood, “Poetry, Paperbacks & Piraguas” celebrated Puerto Rican music, food, and art, with the lookalike contest serving as the initial draw.
Literally Everyone’s Invited is hardly O, Miami’s first printed offering. Last year, the organization released Ventanitas: A Window Into Miami’s Coffee Culture, written by Daniela Perez Miron and photographed by Schilling.
O, Miami’s Literally Everyone’s Invited. Out December 16 via O, Miami Civic Publishing 2025. omiami.org.
