SPF 2025 FRINGE
Celebrating UNESCO World Poetry Day
Every year World Poetry Day is celebrated around the globe in readings and in ceremonies honoring poets and inspiring writers, whether aspiring or well established. Come celebrate World Poetry Day as we kick off Arts, Culture & Creativity Month starting in April. Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea while writing or being inspired by prompts.
Join Nevada County poets throughout the day, as we explore this year’s theme, Poetry as a Bridge to Peace and Inclusion. Poems will be posted on a bulletin board and will be displayed at the Sierra Poetry Festival Main Stage event on April 12, 2025.
UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It contributes to peace and security by promoting international cooperation in education, sciences, culture, communication and information. UNESCO promotes knowledge sharing and the free flow of ideas to accelerate mutual understanding and a more perfect knowledge of each other's lives.
Second Annual Ekphrastic Fantastic
Art-Inspired Poetry
Friday, March 28, 2025
5:00 - 7:00pm
Artists Studio in the Foothills (ASiF)
940 Idaho Maryland Rd.
Grass Valley, CA
(map)
A celebration of live poetry in conversation with art created by ASiF’s Artists in Residence. ASiF's annual Ekphrastic Fantastic event is a collaboration with the Nevada County Arts Council. Its mission is to bring together — to celebrate and cross pollinate — two distinct and thriving communities of local visual artists and poets, followed by book sales and signing. Free and open to the public.
Donations gratefully accepted to support the ASiF Art Center.
Poets Pub Crawl
Saturday, March 29, 2025
4:00 - 6:00pm
Stone House, Lola at The National Exchange, Nevada City Winery, Szabo Winery, Brewhaus, Three Forks, Deer Creek, The Fern.
Festival Fundraiser!
Details to come. Poetry readings, mini workshops, custom beverages.
Five Nevada County Women Poets
Thursday, April 3, 2025
6:00 - 7:30pm
The Miners Foundry and Cultural Center
325 Spring St.
Nevada City, CA
In this, their 9th Sierra Poetry Festival pop-up event, five Nevada County Women read their poems.
Kirsten Casey
Judy Crowe
Molly Fisk
Ingrid Keriotis
Judie Rae
Open Mic Poetry Slam Lottery!
Thursday, April 10, 2025
5:00 - 7:00pm
The Iron Door at The Holbrooke
212 W Main St.
Grass Valley, CA
Hosted by Jori Phillips.
Readings begin at 5:45pm sharp. Arrive in time to put your name in the lottery tumbler. Starting at 5:45, we’ll draw the names of 20 poets, one-by-one. Your original poem should not exceed three minutes; please time yourself beforehand.
Compete for the opportunity to read your poem on the Main Stage as part of Sierra Poetry Festival. Three finalists will be selected by our judges. Looking forward to this flash round of poetic voices!
Sierra Poetry Festival Media Lounge
Join us in welcoming our visiting poets and presenters, and celebrating our founding festival benefactors.
Each one will be interviewed, wine will flow thanks to our no-host bar, and the public is welcome as our media lounge is broadcast live!
Survival Is a Success of Sorts
Poetic Crossings 2025
Saturday, April 19, 2025
Doors at 6:00pm | Reading at 6:30pm
Tickets available through North Columbia Schoolhouse $15.00
North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center
17894 Tyler Foote Rd
Nevada City, CA
An evening of sorting through the papers, the past, the places and people who have helped to shape our community and those that continue to contribute through words, letters, and action. In honor and gratitude, in a time when poems—where art—is one of our greatest tools to hold together our social bonds, our shared humanity, our sanity.
If poets are the namers of things, as has been suggested, then this work of naming has become, over time, ever more complex. Only by looking back can we observe how well we have named our times, our lives in relation to culture, community, and our place. So, this is an opportunity to look back at our own work, and that of others who have done well in this naming. What was accurate and what has stuck? An opportunity to celebrate, to grieve, to feel together what has come and gone, and what remains.
With Doc Dachtler, Wang Ping, Molly Fisk, and Davis Reeves
