Thank you to @thirdanglepoets and @boxyardrtp for the opportunity to have Press Play Poetz represented at the inaugural Triangle Poetry Festival. It was an honor to share space with such powerful voices.
Shoutout to our phenomenal representative, @bannedbrooke , who embodied the heart of our collective and delivered true mastery in her craft!
#PressPlayPoets
#ThirdAnglePoets
#BoxYardRTP
#TrianglePoetry
#Nopauseneeded
Two days. Dozens of voices. One unforgettable weekend at Boxyard RTP.
The Triangle Poetry Festival brought together poets, performers and community members for a chance to share their voice, hone their craft and find common ground through verse. From Friday’s open mic at LOJO to Saturday’s closing with 99 poets reading together at once, each moment reminded us why gathering around art matters.
Workshops, tea ceremonies, cypher dancing, youth showcases — the weekend had something for everyone and the energy in the crowd showed it.
Big thanks to @thirdanglepoets for making this happen, and to every artist and attendee who brought their full selves to Boxyard.
It’s hard to capture the full weight of what this past weekend’s inaugural Triangle Poetry Festival meant to me in just one post, so I won’t. I’ll make two… LOL.
This one is for the luminous presence and undeniable talent of our youth poets from the @chspoeticjusticeleague . It was an honor to lend ears and hearts to their expression and to witness their gifts up close and in real time.
@thirdanglepoets would like to thank Ms. Raquel Harris of Carrboro High School for helping bring the Inkling Diem showcase to life.
Special shout out and thanks to @lizawolfffrancis , former Poet Laureate of Carrboro, as well for her efforts!
The future is in good hands, and if this weekend was any indication, it is already speaking loudly.
#TrianglePoetryFestival
#PoeticJusticeLeague
#YouthVoicesMatter
#SpokenWordCommunity
#thirdanglepoets
No better way to spend #worldpoetryday than with our little (mighty) collective!
So grateful to be a part of @thirdanglepoets and to share space that encourages creativity, expression, authenticity, togetherness, and resistance.
How good it is to lead talks about wildflowers and poets who have come before. To connect people with workshops and readings, to watch dancers dance to poetry, and artists art to poetry, to gather and make a parking lot an art space. To work hard and sweat for something that matters.
So the first Triangle Poetry Festival is in the books, but more events are around the corner. Everyone is a poet & everyone has a voice waiting to be cultivated—I hope to see you at our next event! 🌸
Peace,
Tonight’s the night we begin our inaugural Triangle Poetry Festival. We are excited to welcome and embrace the community at large into our haven of expression and connection.
In addition to this evening’s festivities, which will include a meet and greet and performances from members of the Third Angle Poets collective, our eyes will be captivated by a live, in living color painting exhibition from our own visual artist, @caialco .
Limited tickets for tonight’s kickoff event are still available at all price points via the link in our bio. We look forward to seeing you there.
Join us today at our first Triangle Poetry Festival!
Meet our Third Angle Poets
Share on our all day open mic
Read together with 99 Poets
We have a group of incredible innovators curating awesome experiences, come be a part of the movement!
Ticket sales still open, see link in bio for more details!
#TrianglePoetryFestival
#AllDayOpenMic
#SpeakYourTruth
#ThirdAnglePoets
#BoxyardRTP
We know many of you have been asking will there be an opportunity to recite or perform?
The answer is yes!
This Saturday at the Triangle Poetry Festival, we’re excited to feature an all-day open mic, giving you the space to share your thoughts, express your feelings, and connect through the power of art and spoken word.
Whether you’re a seasoned performer or stepping up for the first time, this is your moment to be heard.
We look forward to seeing everyone there!
To purchase your tickets, please select the link in the bio above. We offer ticket options at a variety of price points, including a" pay what you can" option, to accommodate all lovers, admirers, and participants of the arts!
#TrianglePoetryFestival
#AllDayOpenMic
#SpeakYourTruth
#ThirdAnglePoets
#BoxyardRTP
Join us Sat. March 21 at Triangle Poetry Festival for Eden Unheard: an uplifting reading by community-nominated, contemporary poets and spoken word artists, like @bannedbrooke (nominated by @pressplaypoetz )
Brooke Bailey Peters is an artist and a mother in the thick of figuring out where those two identities intersect. Her writing can be found in @bookriot , Crab Fat Magazine, The Quotable, Certain Circuits, and Lavender Review. Her other writing can be found under a pseudonym that cannot be publicly printed lest someday her children find it. Meet her to find out.
About Press Play Poetz:
Press Play Poetz is a poetry movement founded in 2018 by poet @ifyouwontdswill . Rooted in a deep reverence for the transformative power of the spoken and written word, the organization has produced a range of dynamic artistic programming including poetic showcases, workshops, theatrical productions, poetry slams, and business spotlights.
Through its commitment to cultivating authentic creative spaces, Press Play Poetz has set the stage for established artists and served as a launch pad for several of the Triangle area’s current poetic staples.
“We’ve got…the whole motherworld in our breath & in our hands.” (motherworld: a devotional for the after-life by Destiny Hemphill)
Destiny Hemphill is a chronically ill ritual worker and poet, living on the unceded territory of the Eno-Occaneechi band of the Saponi Nation (Durham, NC). She is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow (@neaarts ) and has received other fellowships for her poetry from @naropavoices Summer Writing Program, @callaloojournal@tin_house@kenyonreview Writers Workshop, and @torchliteraryarts .
🎙️March 21, a @thepoetryfox nominee, Destiny brings us the benediction of her breath at Triangle Poetry Festival’s featured reading, Eden Unheard.
More about Destiny:
✍🏾She is a co-editor for Poetry as Spellcasting (@natlanticbooks 2023) and the author of the poetry collection motherworld: a devotional for the alter-life (@actionbooks 2023), which was a finalist for the National Poetry Series Award, @lambdaliterary Award, and Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Prize. Her work has also been featured in Poetry Magazine , @southerncultures , and the Academy of American Poets’ (@poetsorg ) Poem-a-Day series.
📖She served as an inaugural Poetry Coalition Fellow, a Kenan Visiting Writer in Poetry at the @unc_englishcomplit and an inaugural Tin House Reading Fellow.
Wildflowers are in my opinion a form of resistance, rewilding the spaces that capitalist-centered city plans have wiped clean. With every wildflower planted, life is given back instead of taken. The same goes for poetry spoken, and for the poets whose lives were cut short, but whose words are perennial, giving us life each season.
Come drink tea, read memoriam poems, and get a packet of wildflower seeds to start your own natural rebellion at the first ever Triangle Poetry Festival—it’ll be a privilege to hold space and honor these poets with you.
Ticket link in bio & full description below:
A ceremony where poets read the works of martyred voices over tea and scatter wildflower word-seeds in their honor.
Join us in honoring poets Renee Good and Refaat Alareer. Martyred for their beliefs, identities, and actions, both left legacies of bravery and creativity, and an ever-expanding voice that is impossible to silence. In our stripped-away lands, repopulating plants that feed native species is an act of resistance and love – just like poetry. Come gather and bear witness with us as we read poems and create community over warm drinks. You’ll leave with a Blue Aster wildflower packet to carry their memory, spread their joy, and sow their words in your community.
Scattering the Seeds of Resistance is a 2026 Triangle Poetry Festival experience in collaboration with NC Botanical Garden. Be sure to check out the full weekend of other great programming at Triangle Poetry Festival, celebrating the artists, the heart-leading advocates, and the movers in the margins.
We’re excited to announce Triangle Poetry Festival’s community-nominated featured lineup is now live! 🌟
Welcome Griot & Grey Owl Founders Khalisa and Eric “LB” Thompson to EDEN UNHEARD: A Featured Poetry Reading on 3/21 at 5PM. RSVP in bio.
🍃Nominated by @humblerodentlit and @fatherofnali 🍃
Take time to reset, honor and celebrate needing something different than we thought.
Triangle Poetry Festival is not the first of its kind. It burns bright thanks to trailblazing heart leaders like the Black Southern Writer’s Conference @griotandgrey — rich soil so many in the community can thank for our own blossoming.
About our features:
🔮Khalisa Rae Thompson is an award-winning poet, essayist, and cultural organizer based in North Carolina. She is the author of two poetry collections: *Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat* (Red Hen Press) and *Real Girls Have Real Problems*. Khalisa’s work has received multiple national and regional honors, including Pushcart Prize nominations, an APPY Award, and a feature on NPR’s Due South. In addition to her writing, she is the co-founder of the Griot & Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference, a nationally recognized gathering celebrating Black Southern stories and authors.
❤️🔥Eric “LB” Thompson, known on stage as LB (Lyrically Blessed), is a nationally touring slam poet, writer, and lyricist. An alumnus of North Carolina A&T State University, he has competed in national poetry slam competitions for over a decade as a member of the Bull City Slam Team. Winning titles at the South Fried Regional Poetry Slam LB is the author of To the Voices in My Head and co-founder of the Griot & Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference.
🦉The Griot & Grey Owl Conference brings together Black writers, poets, scholars, and cultural workers whose stories are deeply rooted in Southern soil. Each year’s theme invites attendees to explore complex topics—ranging from identity and place to memory and justice through literature, performance, and communal dialogue.
video cred: @msdalia22
🫰Oh snap, open mic meets open dance floor at Po Fest.
Step into LINE BREAK, where you’ll get to read your favorite lines (originals or covers) as @raleighrockers puts your poetry in motion through dance. Conceived and MC’d by Third Angle co-director @fatherofnali Tickets in bio link.
Word creds: For the Breakers by Alvin Lau, Blessing the Baby by Diannely Antigua, The Beat Generation by Jack Kerouac, Closing Time by Peter E. Murphy, and Kicks by our resident Hip-Hop head, @ifyouwontdswill
#poetry #movement #spokenword #breakin #trianglepoetryfestival
