Monica Uszerowicz Reports From O, Miami

If you've been suffering from fear of missing out on the O, Miami Festival–fear no more! Monica Uszerowicz writes-in to Literary Hub to set the scene for folks at home. "It’s April and, all of a sudden, almost cool in Miami—there’s no chill, but the sky is overcast and the air devoid of its typical moisture," she writes. "It’s nearly comfortable, below 80 degrees." From there: 

Walking is rare here, and it is a good day to walk. I’m on South Beach for “Come with me, don’t be afraid: The Beach is a Border,” a poetic action that’s part of O, Miami Poetry Festival. Each April, O Miami’s goal is to make the entire county, all 2.7 million of us, encounter a poem: via stickers on fruits, audio recordings hidden inside seashells, paper sheets passed out in barbershops, intimate readings at hotels and theaters, car-sized messages painted onto rooftops.

The artist Sandra March conceived of “Come with me, don’t be afraid.” She and poets José Olivarez and Natalie Scenters-Zapico are going to lead a crowd of people down the sand, then back up, pausing to read poetry along the way: poems about man-made, body-governing borders and their repercussions, along with the moments in which they’re transcended. “His teeth are stars, and the stars are teeth, and there is nothing to mark the difference,” Scenters-Zapico reads, from her poem, “Because They Lack Country.” She is from El Paso, Texas and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, and her second book, Lima :: Limón, will be published in May. “He draws lines across her body in pen—openings for respiration.” March announces, in Spanish, that it is time to keep moving.

March wanted “Come with me, don’t be afraid” to briefly transform the coast—often a space of arrival for those who’ve fled their countries of origin, and a border from which they might be sent back—into a place of reverence. “The beach is seen as a place of recreation, but for migrants it is an insurmountable frontier to achieve a better life,” March told me over email, a few weeks before the event. “With this poetic action, I want to highlight this tension, between the leisure that some experience and the danger that others run into when they are forced to cross a natural border. Where some live their privileges, others die for a better life.”

Read on at Literary Hub.