Join us for a celebration of poets and poetry from Tennessee and beyond. Our 68th Annual poetry festival, in partnership with MTSU Write and Poetry in the Boro, will be held April 26, 2025, on the Middle Tennessee State University Campus and virtually on Zoom.
Festival Warm-Up
On Friday, April 25, 2025, at MTSU Foundation House, Poetry in the Boro hosts a reading by Christian Collier followed by an open mic session. Doors open at 6:00 pm and the program starts around 6:30 pm, so there will be time to mingle and sign up for open mic slots. The MTSU Foundation House is located at 324 W Thompson Ln, Murfreesboro TN 37129.
Festival
This festival will be held Saturday, April 26, from 8:30 am – 4:30 pm Eastern in the Academic Classroom Building at MTSU and via Zoom. Virtual attendees will be provided a link. With a morning plenary session and multi-track afternoon sessions from award-winning writers, along with contest announcements and a reading of winning poems, the festival will be a great way for attendees to improve their craft and immerse in poetry as we near the end of National Poetry Month.
Fees & Registration
The fee for the event is $40 ($10 for college students). Registration is open through April 18, 2025. Click below to register now.
Travelers:please note that a block of rooms is available for reservation through March 25, 2025. Information will be sent to you after registration.
Festival Line-up
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Academic Classroom Building, MTSUCampus
8:30 – 9:30 am REGISTRATION Check-in, Mingle, Coffee
9:30 – 11:00 am PLENARY WORKSHOP (In-person and Zoom) Through the Side Door: Unlocking Surprise in Your Work Christian Collier In this session we will explore ways to write into surprise and deeper levels of interiority.
11:00 am – 1:00 pm BREAK Lunch on your own
1:00 pm – 2:15 pm AFTERNOON SESSIONS
In-Person Workshops (Choose 1)
1. Publishing Strategies (roundtable discussion) Kory Wells, Cynthia Storrs, Bryanna Licciardi, & James Croal Jackson This roundtable discussion will cover such topics as online vs. print journals, chap books, traditional and self publishing and also ways to make a poem or manuscript its absolute best. Everyone can contribute and ask questions.
2. Poetry's Politics: How Does Poetry Confront the Politics of its Moment? Donovan McAbee From the sardonic realism of Poland's Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska, to the surrealist manifestos of the Chilean, Nicanor Parra, to the contemporary protests of John Murillo, this seminar will examine different approaches poets take in confronting the politics of their times. We'll aim for a lively, insightful discussion, with the goals of giving us a better understanding of the poets we read, as well as insights into how these poets might inform our own practices of writing.
3. Narrative and Non-Narrative Poetry Claudia Stanek Have a poem that doesn't quite work? This workshop will help you to use non-narrative poetic approach toward deep revision of your narrative poem. an explanation of narrative vs. non-narrative poetry will be given. Participants will then have an opportunity to "create" non-narrative poetry from narrative and narrative from non-narrative in an exercise to further understanding. After this exercise, participants will also use this technique on one or two of their own poems which they will have brought with them.
Zoom Workshop
Poet's Toolbox: Strategic and Tactical Tools for Creative Work John C. Mannone In this interactive workshop, the topical trajectory may be determined in situ based on a spontaneous interest of the majority. It will cover some poetry basics presented uniquely; however, it will be couched in an advanced backdrop before proceeding to specific tactics in generating work that are very effective, and possibly novel. Some of these tactics supplement, even transcend the conventional advice, especially the power of subverting form.
2:15 – 2:30 pm BREAK
2:30 pm – 4:15 pm FESTIVAL CONTESTS (In-person and Zoom) Announcement and reveal of Tennessee Visions Contest winning cover art Announcement and reading of 68th Annual Poetry Festival Contest winning poems, including Best of Fest winner
4:15 pm – 4:30 pm CLOSING
4:30 pm ADJOURN
Festival Presenters
CHRISTIAN J. COLLIER is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, TN. He is the author of Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024), and the chapbook The Gleaming of the Blade, the 2021 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry, December, and elsewhere. A 2015 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellow, he is also the winner of the 2022 Porch Prize in Poetry and the 2020 ProForma Contest from Grist Journal. Learn more at www.christianjcollier.com.
JAMES CROAL JACKSON is a Filipino-American poet working in film production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine and Micro-Press, 2022). His poems have been published in literary publications such as Rattle, Columbia Review, Whale Road Review, and HAD. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee.
BRYANNA LICCIARDI resists the question, “Where are you from?” because she’s lived all over the country—California, Texas, Michigan, Massachusetts, Louisiana—and currently resides in Murfreesboro. She is a degree collector of sorts, with an MFA in poetry from Emerson College, a Specialist Degree in higher education from MTSU, and a Doctorate in Education from MTSU. She works as an English and Women/Gender Studies lecturer, at—you guessed it—MTSU. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Skin Splitting (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and full-length collection Fish Love (Alternating Current Press, 2024). A multi–Pushcart Prize nominee, her individual works have appeared in publications like BlazeVOX, Cleaver Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, and Peacock Journal.
JOHN C. MANNONE has poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, New England Journal of Medicine, and others. He was awarded the Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) and served as the celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He has five full-length collections (and five chapbooks), the latest is his first short fiction collection, Dark Wind, Dark Water (Mind’s Eye Publishing, 2025). He’s a retired professor of physics teaching mathematics and creative writing whenever the opportunity arises. Learn more at jcmannone.wordpress.com or https://www.facebook.com/jcmannone/
DONOVAN MCABEE is a poet, songwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Hudson Review, The Sun Magazine (US), Garden & Gun, Poetry London, and a variety of other places. His poetry chapbook, Sightings, was released as part of the Floodgate Series, Vol 7. His academic monograph Charles Simic and the Poetics of Uncertainty was published in 2020. Learn more at www.donovanmcabee.com.
CLAUDIA STANEK‘s work has been turned into a libretto, been part of an art exhibition, and been translated into Polish. Her poems exist online, in print, and in her chapbook, Language You Refuse to Learn. She holds an MFA from Bennington College. Her most recent chapbook, Beneath Occluded Shine (Finishing Press,2024), is now available.
CYNTHIA STORRS holds an M.Ed. from the University of Sheffield and has authored articles on biculturalism after teaching 25 years in Europe. Relocated from Colorado, she served on the board of Poetry West, Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Committee, and Pikes Peak Arts Council, which awarded her a grant for promoting poetry in area schools. Her first chapbook, GARDEN CLIPPINGS, will be published this fall by Finishing Line Press. Her poems can be found in the CO Poets website, Persimmon Tree, The Ekphrastic Review; 9 anthologies, Critique, and The Tennessee Magazine.
KORY WELLS is author of two poetry collections, most recently Sugar Fix from Terrapin Books. Her writing has been featured on The Slowdown from American Public Media and won Blue Earth Review’s 2023 Flash Creative Nonfiction Contest. A former poet laureate of Murfreesboro, she nurtures creative community through her leadership with Poetry in the Boro, the Bloom Stage storytelling show, and the from-home creative writing program MTSU Write. Learn more at www.korywells.com.
Festival Partners
MTSU Write is a non-degreed, community-facing creative writing program that hosts local and virtual events, facilitates virtual writing groups, and offers from-home, one-on-one mentoring to writers of all experience levels in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and playwriting. Learn more.
Poetry in the Boro iis a monthly open mic and featured reading series hosted in Murfreesboro. Founded in 2016, the mission of PitB is to bring poetry to the community and to offer a place for our community’s creative, unique voices in all styles of poetry and spoken word. Learn more.
Information on the festival can also be found on the Poetry Society of Tennessee website.
The Poetry Society of Tennessee is a non-profit organization founded by poets for poets in 1953 and a member of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. The society welcomes poets and poetry lovers from across Tennessee and beyond and offers members an inclusive, supportive community with plenty of hands-on opportunities to learn, grow, and appreciate the art and craft of poetry. Learn more.
Poetry Society of Tennessee 