Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series.

"A poem is an egg with a horse inside it." 

That's how a fourth grader described poetry to Traci Brimhall, who'll be featured at the annual Kalamazoo Poetry Festival this week. An egg with a horse inside – something very big inside something very small. "That fourth grader was pretty wise," Brimhall says, "and it's my favorite definition of poetry."

She's just one of the poets in this year's festival lineup. 

Other poets have defined their art in different ways. Sylvia Plath called poetry "the blood jet." William Carlos Williams thought of it as a "machine made out of words." But no matter what you call it, Brimhall says poetry is vital, even in our media-saturated age. She agrees with German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who told a younger poet that creating a poem was about "living the questions." Questions without immediate and facile answers aren't very popular these days of "hot takes." But Brimhall says, "I think writing poems helps me notice and understand myself and my life and the world. And it helps me ask good questions because questions are actually more useful to us than answers."

Poet Traci Brimhall, who earned her PhD from Western Michigan University, is the Poet Laureate of KansasBrimhall, who is the poet laureate for the State of Kansas, earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and is now on the English faculty at Kansas State University. Her most recent poetry collection is Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod (Copper Canyon Press, 2020). Her 2017 collection Saudade was inspired by the heritage of her mother, who was born in Brazil.

Kalamazoo poet Kaitlin Martin is the festival's outgoing board president. She admits that many people can find poetry intimidating, if not incomprehensible. 

But Martin says it’s not. "I've heard people say like everything's poetry. Photography can be poetry." Martin says that's one reason why the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival has been incorporating various art forms into its program, including dance, music, and theater. She says all help the community celebrate its poets.

In her "day job," Martin is a social worker helping HIV patients at Cares Sexual Wellness Services in Kalamazoo. But she continues writing poems, a passion that started when she was in the fifth grade and really took off when she got to Loy Norrix High School.

"I was an angsty teenager,” Martin says. "I had a lot of things that I just needed to get out of me and onto the page. I was searching for truth and for what was real and what made sense and trying to articulate the storm that was happening inside of me."

Martin's work has been published in journals including Passages North, Third Coast, Rhino, and the Bellevue Literary Review. Poetry also runs in her family. Her mother, Gail Martin, is also a published poet. And her dad, George Martin, helped found the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival in 2013. (See a Poetry Festival Founders' VIDEO.) Best known for his decades of work with The Arc Community Advocates, Martin is not a poet himself. "I really have to work to understand what poets are saying. It's not my language." But he says it is a language worth learning and treasuring.

The 2023 Poetry Festival will be the first to be held in person since the COVID pandemic hit. For three years, the event had to be held virtually. Traci Brimhall says getting back together physically is important. "Poetry is a nourishment for me," she says. "It might not connect with everybody, but I do think connection, community communication, and just the company of other people is a nourishment for me."

Kaveh Akbar, an Iranian born poet and poetry editor at The Nation.The theme of this year's festival, its 10th, is "The Garden." Kaitlin Martin says it was chosen carefully because both poetry and gardens can take years to get "right." "I've got an apple tree I've been pruning every year since I moved into this house in December 2019. And it's just starting to get its shape right now, and that's similar for poetry. Some of what we'll be showcasing this year were like seeds planted ten years ago, and we hope more seeds take root at the festival."

To involve the community in the creation of poetry, the Poetry Festival Board co-hosted a community-engaged ekphrastic art-making and a creation by Friends of Poetry of a community poem reflecting the garden theme.  (Please see SIDEBAR.)

The 2023 Kalamazoo Poetry Festival will also feature presentations by Palestinian American poet, novelist, and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan, as well as Kaveh Akbar, a poet who was born in Iran and now teaches at Randolph College. Akbar, poetry editor at The Nation will also be on hand. (See the entire 2023 Poetry Festival schedule below.)

Diane Suess, a Kalamazoo poet who won the Pulitzer Prine forPoetry in 2022, will read virtually at the Celebration of poets.Martin says the diversity of the poets involved in the festival is crucial. She says Seuss will read via video at its celebration of poets living in the Kalamazoo area, which will take place on the first day of the conference. Suess, a former professor at Kalamazoo College, is the author of six books, including her most recent publication, frank: sonnets ( 2021), which won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Award in 2022.

Martin says the festival has long wanted to bring Brimhall back to the community. As for the others, “Kaveh Akbar is just phenomenal. He's kind of a rising star in the poetry world right now. And Hala Alyan is a brilliant writer, and her poetry collections are also really, really, well done.” Martin says their backgrounds represent a duality of existence and identity that informs their work as poets and writers.   

“For the past 10 years we have been planting the seeds that have grown into what has become a showcase for the diversity of poets and poetry that contribute to the rich cultural fabric of the Kalamazoo area and this year we are bringing musicians with a soul for collaboration into the mix,” says Martin in a press release. “There are so many voices in Kalamazoo with so much to say, and these events represent a powerful way to hear from community members of all ages and walks of life. The garden is as much a process as it is a space and we are excited to hear how this year’s theme is reflected by poets.”
 
Martin and Brimhall hope people will put aside any fear they might have about poetry and just come to the festival. It will be held April 13-15 at First Congregational Church in downtown Kalamazoo. Masks are required at in-person events and will be available to people who need one. 

Brimhall says people should not approach a poem as a problem to be solved. Better, she says, to just be "in" the poem and accept the mystery. 

"A poem is not a puzzle." It is an egg with a horse inside it.

 
Schedule of Events
 
Workshops:  Thursday, April 13, 6:30 p.m.;  Saturday, April 15 at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. (see website for details)
 
Celebration of Community Poets with special guest Diane Seuss and emceed by Ed Genesis and Allison Kennedy, Friday, April 14 at 6 p.m.
 
Your Turn Open Mic:  Friday, April 14 • 8 p.m.
 
Craft Talk:   Saturday, April 15, 2 p.m.
 
Festival Finale with three featured poets:  Saturday, April 15, 6 p.m.
Hala Alyan, Kaveh Akbar, Traci Brimhall


Location: All events take place at First Congregational Church, 345 W. Michigan Ave., downtown Kalamazoo

About the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival:

The Kalamazoo Poetry Festival Steering Committee was formed in November 2012 to create an annual celebration of the area’s outstanding poets. In 2014 it had its first festival and became a nonprofit arts organization. The Festival is possible thanks to the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, the Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation, the John E. Fetzer Foundation the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and many individuals and other corporate and organizational supporters.