Saturday Aug 23, 2008 (3pm)
The iconoclastic poet/playwright Amiri Baraka once declared, "There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom." At today's festival, Baraka backs up this sentiment by reading alongside a cadre of the community's young writers as well as past and present poet laureates (Baraka's polemical 9/11 poem was the impetus behind the abolishment of the honorific in New Jersey). The pen-is-mightier program also features "Janitor of History" Louis Reyes Rivera, Norway's best-selling translated poet Hal Sirowitz, and Miles Davis aficionado Quincy Troupe. The experimental rhythms of the Indoda Entsha Percussion Ensemble punctuate an afternoon that reminds us to spread the love — it's the Brooklyn way.
– Jason Jude Chan