O, Miami Poetry Festival celebrates start of national poetry month (includes video story)

April is national poetry month, which means O, Miami Festival is back in full swing, giving Miami poets a platform to express themselves through their work.

All year round, O, Miami teaches poetry in schools and uplifts the community with their words. The poetry festival’s mission is for every person in Miami to discover poems during the month of April. The Festival was founded in 2011 and has been bringing poetry to the city of Miami for over a decade and counting.

Communications director Melissa Gomez expressed that the festival is about bringing poetry to “… places [where] people wouldn’t expect poetry… [but] we think is the most poetic city in the world.”

The most anticipated event, Zip Odes, is being held at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens on April 26 from 6 to 9 p.m. The following day, all are invited to celebrate the festival’s 12th birthday with an open mic and skating at Superwheels from 8 to 10 p.m.

Julia Tsairis is a senior broadcast journalism student at Florida International University. She was born and raised in Miami. Her passion for journalism started out very young as a simple hobby and has blossomed. In addition to her work as a journalist, she enjoys photography and videography and has won many awards for her work. She also enjoys networking in the FIU community. Julia looks forward to achieving her ultimate goal of being able to travel the world, using journalism to help expose the injustices that occur in other countries.