Page 16 - The Wynwood Times - 1st Edition

Vo l . 1 T H E W Y N W O O D T I M E S MAY 2015

Texting, Texting, One, Two, Three

Elizabeth Jacobson makes poetry

short-and-sweet at The Chill Concept

Text by Miranda Miller

“Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”
- Charles Bukowski -

It sends chills up our spines imagining the type of verse Charles focused “on the use of inquiry as a device in poetry,” explained
Bukowski might have created if he had only laid his mitts on the press release from O, Miami.
a Smartphone. After all, he believed that “Genius might be the During the course of the afternoon, collaborators shared their
ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.” pithy ponderings across the ether with each other.

In other words, if you’re a wag with the gift of gab and pack an Jacobson, who earned her MFA from Columbia University, is the
iPhone 6 in your pocket you may be a budding Einstein. author of the poetry collection Her Knees Pulled In, Tres Chicas
Books. She is the founding director of the WingSpan Poetry
That concept was the spirit behind O, Miami’s “Poetry Texting Project, which conducts weekly poetry classes for residents at
Workshop,” held during the early afternoon of Saturday, April homeless and battered family shelters in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
11th at The Chill Concept. and Miami, Florida.

There, about two dozen creatives gathered to explore the The Chill Concept is proud to have participated with O, Miami on
“communicative act of texting,” in an outdoor environment with this project. O, Miami’s mission to deliver a slice of poetry to each
the support of the Arts Connection Foundation. resident of Miami Dade County each year during the month of
April, ranks atop our region’s most ambitious cultural projects.
Poet Elizabeth Jacobson played the role of techno-muse for But let’s be honest. O, Miami has grown beyond the realm of
the audience, elevating the banal act of phone texting to a lyric festival to become a tradition identified with the best of our city
platform for sharing poetry, all without using an app to do it. and we love watching it happen.

The award-winning Jacobson inspired participants to get their www.omiami.org
rhymes flowing by using stanzas of contemporary poems penned
by Jim Moore, Louise Gluck and Pablo Neruda. Her exercise