O, Miami Aims for Higher Visibility in 2023

For O, Miami, 2023 stands as a moment to challenge the preconceived notions of its poetry-focused programming.

"We're really focused on doing what we do best, but doing it bigger, better, and with greater impact and reach," P. Scott Cunningham, the festival's founder and CEO, tells New Times. "The stuff we're doing now we couldn't have done two years ago, and we're enjoying that journey."

For the last eight years, O, Miami has partnered with WLRN on Zip Odes, a poetic structure where each number of the author's ZIP code corresponds to the number of words in each line. The activation has received 15,000 submissions throughout its run. For this year's festival, O, Miami has announced that one lucky Zip Ode will be displayed on a billboard across from the Miami-Dade Arena in downtown Miami during April. Titled "[ Your poem here ]," the project is one of many occurring across Miami-Dade County during National Poetry Month.

Last fall, O, Miami opened its festival submission earlier than in prior years. "That's 100 percent the work of my colleagues Melissa Gomez and Sara Haley, who have done an amazing job creating a more systemized and efficient process for our festival planning," Cunningham explains. And with a growing number of submissions, the festival's impact in Miami and beyond is more visible than ever.
"We have a huge project, I think the biggest we've ever done, debuting in [in April]," Cunningham says. "In collaboration with the City of Miami Beach, we've commissioned an artist collective from Spain called Boa Mistura to paint two gigantic water tanks adjacent to Miami Beach Senior High. For the last six months, we've been teaching poetry at Beach High, and the poetry the students are writing is being incorporated into the project."

Everything is on the table for this year's festival — from ekphrastic workshops on Dolly Parton's cultural impact to an open mic night at Super Wheels. Every day of April is jam-packed with an event or poetry-based project that strives to reach Miami-Dade residents across the city. You might even encounter poems in the form of a parking ticket, temporary tattoos, or while flying into Miami International Airport.

Regardless of where you are located in Miami-Dade or how frequently you read poetry, O, Miami invites everyone to experience the literary form irrespective of experience or skill level. Beginners can find themselves one-to-one with a poet at Books & Books in Coral Gables, and the young poets can participate in the Poetry in Pajamas open mic at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden. There are even workshops tied to local happenings, whether community writing trauma-informed workshops addressing the Surfside tragedy or the preservation of Virginia Key Beach Park.
The lucky winner of the inaugural "[ Your poem here ]" contest will be revealed on April 3, after which their poem will be plastered on the downtown billboard for three weeks. WLRN news director Sergio Bustos says more than 200 submissions were sent in for the chance to be featured, with hundreds more expected before the March 22 deadline.

Even if you're not the selected winner, you can still submit a Zip Ode throughout April. Every Saturday in April, WLRN will announce the top ten poems of the week, culminating in the Zip Odes finale on April 26 at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, where chosen Zip Odes will be read aloud to a public audience by their authors.

Whether your ZIP code has a zero in the middle or a nine at the end, there's one thing everyone submitting a Zip Ode will have in common: it will start with the number three.

O, Miami Poetry Festival. Saturday, April 1, through Sunday, April 30, at various locations; omiami.org. Ticket prices vary.