2nd Annual Canandaigua Poetry Festival

The Canandaigua Poetry Festival is a marathon poetry festival we started last year as part of, or rather in extension of, the Blue Dahlia Open Mic & even though Blue Dahlia is no longer with us, the co-owners, who also own Wickedly-Sent Soap and Candle Company (Don & Scott: http://www.escentedcandle.com) are still interested in making this festival a yearly event. Yeah Don & Scott!

So, this will be our 2nd Annual Canandaigua Poetry Festival. To see the web page for last year, you can check out this link: http://www.poetryfestival.downtowncanandaigua.com

It was also included in the September/October Issue of Poets & writer’s Magazine as part of an article about Poetry Marathons, which you can read at: http://www.pw.org/mag/0609/newsmantzaris.htm

Last year we had poets reading from Noon – 6:30 pm. Single poets were allotted 15 minutes each and groups or duos - 30 minutes. It worked well to have the half-hour groupings spaced out throughout the day, so I think that’s what we’ll be working toward this year, as well. After that, we had musicians for a half-hour each (supposedly from 6:30 to 9 … but really I think we went more from @ 7 – 11).

We had great fun last year and I loved the fact that so many poets from so many separate circles got chances to hear each other’s work. The other thing I was very excited about was that every single performer showed up (on time) for their slots. With so many people participating and so many things that naturally go awry in life, this was more than I expected but I was delighted not to have to revert to a single “plan B” and so I say again, thank you to all the poets and musicians who made last years festival what it was!

Now onto this year, the festival will be held on Saturday, September 8 at The Commons on Main Street in Canandaigua. The Commons is an outdoor stage area that hosts musical acts every weekend throughout the summer. We are also looking into having All Things Art as a back up in case of rain.

That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll write again soon with a proposed schedule. Hope all is well!