Press Release – 2nd Coast to Coast Poetry Festival
Dutch artist Erik van Loon from Rotterdam, the Netherlands organise for the second consecutive year the five days Coast to Coast poetry festival Los Angeles Poetry Beach Festival and its proceeding events: The Poetry Train and L.A.P.D!
Five Days Poetry Festival
DAY 1-3 2nd Poetry Train
September 21-24
At Wednesday September 21st at 6.45 am (sunrise) the Poetry Train will depart from Penn Station, New York and in just 76 hours (3 days) this coast-to-coast poetry train arrive at Union Station, Los Angeles at Saturday, September 24 at 8.00 am. The Poety Train picks up poets in the two biggest cities of US and 62 other big urban cities and small rural towns in 20 different states.
DAY 4 L.A.P.D.
September 24
At Saturday September 24 just a few hours after the Poetry Train arrives a L.A.P.D. will start. L.A.P.D. is an acronym of Los Angeles Poetry Downtown and at this festival local (LA) poets will read together with the poets from the Poetry Train and selected poets form the LA Poetry Beach Festival their work in various bookstores, libraries, cafes, etc in greater Los Angeles. With the tiny L.A.P.D. poetry readings we want to introduce poetry from all over US to all kinds of people in Los Angeles and to get them ready for the main and final event: L.A. Poetry Beach Festival.
Day 5 2nd L.A. Poetry Beach Festival
September 25
On Sunday September 25 from 10.00 am till 6.45 pm (sunset) the 2nd edition of L.A. Poetry Beach Festival will be hold in front of the Venice Beach Poet’s Monument in Los Angeles! There will be workshops, lectures, and the best 52 poets from this years edition will read there selected ‘Some People Never Go Crazy’ poem.
Poetry competition : Some People Never Go Crazy
Deadline: September 15th
Poets from all over the world can submit a poem for the competition. The deadline is September 15th, the entry fee is $10 and the theme is Charles Bukowski’s quote ‘Some People Never Go Crazy’.
Fight illiteracy
Bringing poets from of all over America, level and ages once a year together, and bringing them into contact with the audience helps communities to fight illiteracy. He choosed poetry above prose as a few words poetry, an Haiku for example, can already improve the skills Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Poetry helps also to improves vocabulary, sentence formation, syntax, fluency and creativity.
Two anthology
We publish this year two different anthologies. One L.A. Poetry Beach Festival anthology with max 52 selected poets (deadline September 1st) and one Poetry Train anthology with work from the poets on the Poetry Train. The Poetry Train Anthology will be published, briefly after the journey. For this anthology we will select only one typed (they have to use an old typewriter for it) poem of each poet on the Poetry Train.
Additional information:
April National Poetry Month Promotion Tour
Last April – National Poetry Month – Erik van Loon drove by car the 4,500 miles route of the Poetry Train from New York to Los Angeles to bring the LA Poetry Beach Festival 2022 poster to 247 independent bookstores, 50 public libraries and 64 train stations in order to find poets willing to submit a poem for the festival and or willing to hop on the Poetry Train. At https://www.lapoetrybeach.com/about-us/national-poetry-month you can find all the 360 adresses.
Three Times Charmed
In 2021 and this year the poets will travel by AmTrak. Hopefully, this year at least 64 poets (one poet at each stop) will hop on the Poetry Train to Los Angeles. 64 is too small to lease a whole train, but Erik van Loon is hoping to find, for next year’s festival, enough sponsors and poets to lease his own train. Hopefully the 2023 Poetry Train will have in addition to the coach, the restaurant and the sleeper car, also a disco, a bar and a library car where poets can meet each other.
Crowdfunding
To finance this five days Poetry Festival Erik van Loon recently recently started a crowdfunding. Go to https://www.lapoetrybeach.com/crowdfunding for more info.
Erik van Loon
More information about Erik van Loon you can find in About Us www.lapoetrybeach.com/about-us.
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More info:
Los Angeles Poetry Beach Festival
Erik Van Loon
www.lapoetrybeach.com
lapoetrybeach@gmail.com
EU +31 6 E VAN LOON (+31 6 3 826 5666)
US +1 323 744 7494
Facebook/Instagram/Twitter: @lapoetrybeach
