Photo by Neidy Gutierrez / SOC Images.
Editor’s Note: Adrienne J. Romero is a featured poet in JCPOFEST’s “Enduring Promise” exhibit.
Rather than a summer of siestas filled with laughter, rhythmic music and some playful chisme (gossip), parts of Hudson County’s most lively neighborhoods shifted to a summer of silence as many residents stayed home and off the streets, in fear of the uptick in U.S. Immigrations Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity.
Seeing this, Jersey City Poetry Festival (JCPOFEST) production team members Melida Rodas, I. Buenaventura “Patrick” and José “Le Fiddler” Gonzalez told Slice of Culture that bringing back their festival became even more important this year. Rodas, JCPOFEST’s founder and executive producer, emphasized that poets in the festival can become “vessels” for the communities who feel like they’re being silenced in today’s political climate.
“‘¡Viva! Joy As Resistance’ being the theme in [JCPOFEST] during this administration… and what’s going on, on the ground in our own neighborhoods, it really becomes that much more important, not just for us poets, but for the community…,” Rodas said.
“We’re often made to be silenced. [The community] may not be able to voice their worries, their fears and concerns,and we are here for that. If we could be a vessel for that… creating a space where we can voice that… Where do we look towards? And to me, it has to be hope. So that is [JCPOFEST’s] overall purpose.”
Explore The Three-Day Event
The Jersey City Poetry Festival returns for its second year and will run through Friday, Sept. 25 until Sunday, Sept. 27 in different parts of the city. Each day has its own focus and agenda—including a lineup of artists, interdisciplinary performances and networking—but still hooks onto the umbrella theme of exploring “joy as an act of resilience and renewal.”
Inside the decorated walls of Mana Contemporary, the three JCPOFEST members, part of a team of many, threaded the needle through each festival topic—cultural identity, environmental justice, individual liberation and more—and how each exuberated sides of joy, which inherently results as a form of resistance.
And if you’re able to attend Friday, Sept. 25’s networking event, you can hear tunes of resistance from headliner Resistance Revival Chorus, who have performed at Carnegie Hall, The Apollo Theater and the 2018 Grammys.
Kicking off Saturday, Sept. 26 will be “Youth Voices,” a platform for children all over New Jersey, especially in Jersey City, to perform, sing, recite poetry and just, overall, use their voices.
“The mission is beyond exploring poetry… The mission is also advocating for the planet. We touch on issues of climate justice, conservation, preserving mother nature and all creatures great and small,” Rodas added.
Also on day two of the festival, Patrick, JCPOFEST’s producer, has curated a poetry panel called “Rooted Witness,” which features poets including Evie Shockley, Purvi Shah and Eduardo Martinez-Leyva, who all come from organizations who nurture writers of color. They will explore poetics, environmental justic and cultural identity.
Music will be intertwined in all three days of the event, where Gonzalez, better known as Le Fiddler, has led the forefront as the violinist, composer and music producer with assistance from Cara Hagan for dance elements. Featured musicians include Giselle Bellas, Sofia Carrasco, Mary Jean Canziani and many more, including their main headliner Richard Blanco, who is the first Latino and openly gay person to be the U.S. inaugural poet; he read “One Today” for Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
You can find more information and tickets here. For a general rundown of the weekend, click here.
Multiculturalism: ‘Eso Le Da Una Fuerza y Una Potencia a Nuestro Festival’ — ‘That Gives Our Festival Strength And Power’
In conjunction with JCPOFEST’s diverse set of artistic mediums, also lies the diverse location of the programs and its internal team.
And with Jersey City—or on a broader lens, Hudson County—their diversity is more than a statistic. Le Fiddler, who is of Cuban background, emphasized that this gives JCPOFEST a magic touch.
“Lo llamamos multicultural porque más bien defendemos las raíces latinoamericanas. Nueva Jersey es uno de los estados que más inmigrantes y también personas de diferentes países tiene, y eso le da esa magia de poder tener dentro de una misma comunidad varias personas, principalmente personas de índole latina, personas que vienen de lo mismo, de Nicaragua, de Guatemala, Cubanos, como podemos también, en el caso de algunos artistas que son también Filipinos. Entonces, eso le da una fuerza y una potencia a nuestro festival.“
– José “Le Fiddler” Gonzalez
“We call it multicultural because we are actually championing Latin American roots. New Jersey is one of the states with the highest numbers of immigrants and people from various countries, and that gives it that magic of being able to have—within a single community—many different people, primarily people of Latin heritage, people coming from similar backgrounds—from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cubans—as well as, for instance, some artists who are Filipino. So, that gives strength and power to our festival.”
Patrick, who is a trans man and of Filipino background, also added that by having different ethnicities and cultures in Jersey City, it allows people who aren’t able to travel or haven’t been exposed to different ways of life, a chance to see pieces of the world.
“Maybe they don’t travel so far out of either Jersey City or New Jersey or even the country, [the audience] get to see these people and hopefully they’ll be inspired [and], educated a little bit, but beyond that, hopefully, it moves them to take some sort of action themselves and not feel so scared anymore to be silent,” he said.
If you can’t make it to the festival, JCPOFEST is also running an exhibit called “Enduring Promise” at the Museum of Jersey City History, featuring a selection of artwork and poets speaking on social justice and the pursuit of happiness with the backdrop of America’s 250th Anniversary. It is open to the public Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. until December.
You can support JCPOFEST, a grassroots festival, by buying tickets, donating or volunteering.
