Flyleaf Books will be hosting the annual West End Poetry Festival on Oct. 18.
The festival is sponsored by the Town of Carrboro to celebrate poetry. The event brings poets from different backgrounds together to share their love of poetry.
Jacinta White, a poet with over 24 years of experience, is one of three poets who will be highlighted at the festival. She will be reading from her latest collection, "Resurrecting The Bones," a collection born from a journey through African-American churches and cemeteries of the rural South.
“People who come out to the festival should come out with an open mind, and be ready to hear — not to be entertained, but be ready to be moved,” Jacinta White said. “Poetry should be celebrated because it touches the heart and soul of humanity. We so often get away from that in hard times, but poetry helps us sit with our humanity in a way that I think is beautiful.”
Zach White, a local poet who will be reading two poems from his collection, said that he thinks the festival is great because it allows younger, newer poets and older, experienced poets to come together to share their work with each other.
Zach White said he is excited to hear from Eduardo Corral, one of the three acclaimed award-winning poets who will be highlighted at the festival.
Corral said he thinks poetry festivals are important because they open up spaces for poetry to exist in the local communities and make it accessible to everyone.
“People have this idea that poetry is hard to understand or it's not for everyone and that’s not the case," Corral said. "Poetry is for the general audience, it is for students, not just for people in academia."
Corral, the 2011 winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, will be reading from his second book, "Guillotine," which he has been writing for approximately eight years. Corral said "Guillotine" was inspired by how we use language in a beautiful way to describe pain, trauma and hurt.
