Miami com

This festival of words is going to make your life better, Miami. Here’s how.

By Connie Ogle

March 26, 2019 2:06 PM

You’ll see this billboard in Little Haiti as part of a project calling out the perils of gentrification in the community. It’s all part of O, Miami.

If it’s April in Miami, expect poetry. Everywhere.

The annual O, Miami festival is just about to start, and its creators are determined to get poetry in front of your eyes sometime between April 1 and 30 (and possibly many days in between). There will be workshops and readings (one with President Obama’s Inaugural Poet, Richard Blanco). Poets will read their works during a county commission meeting. There are zine fairs - and one is at Milly’s Empanada Factory in that most poetic of places, Kendall.

There’s even a “Game of Thrones” watch party at Gramps in Wynwood, and we all know how expressive and elevated that show is.

Such projects will prove to you poetry is a vital part of the fabric of Miami life. No, really. You’ll be smarter, energized, newly literate. Poetry is going to make you a better person. Here are just a few of the things you can do to be best during O, Miami.

Remember that time O, Miami put poetry on a bus? They’re going to put it in new places this year.

Get parking tickets you don’t have to pay

You’ll see that citation on your windshield, and you’ll be SO MAD. But don’t panic - maybe it’s a citation containing poetry, not a bill that you shouldn’t have to pay because you did NOT see that parking sign. O, Miami is turning the tables on the everyday horrible experience of getting a ticket.

Ride the high seas in a pirate ship

From 6-9 p.m. April 27 you can sail on the El Loro Pirate Ship with Bookleggers and O, Miami. Leaving from a notorious den of villainy (our favorite tourist trap, Bayside Marketplace) you can wear an eyepatch and indulge in your “Treasure Island” fantasies. Also we hear the rum is free. Can we get a Yo ho ho?

Remember to stay gold

A large sculpture by Jessy Nite will be installed in a field next to the shake capitol of Miami, Robert is Here. It will say “STAY GOLD,” just like the advice to Ponyboy in that book “The Outsiders” that we read and loved in middle school. Wait - what do you mean Robert Frost wrote about staying gold first? Wow. SEE HOW MUCH WE HAVE LEARNED ALREADY?

Eat poetic fruit

Look hard before you buy that banana. Perhaps you’ll find a quote from John Keats. Or maybe you’ll discover a guanabana with the words of Juan Felipe Herrera. A lemon with Mary Sarton. A bag of grapes with Marjory Stoneman Douglas. O, Miami is sticking poetry on produce. Maybe this will inspire you to put down that croqueta and eat something healthy.

Eat poetic pastelitos

Poetic sentiments will appear on the tissue in the pastelito box at local bakeries. You have no choice but to investigate the sweet, sweet goodness.

O, Miami festival

When: April 1-30
Where: All over Miami-Dade County
For a full list of projects and events - and there are so many! - visit omiami.org.