The Long Beach Shakespeare Company is hosting its fourth annual Poetry Festival this weekend at the Helen Borgers Theatre in Bixby Knolls. The festival offers three days filled with live performing artists, musicians and, of course, the spoken word.
Holly Leveque, the company’s artistic director and one of the show’s performers, said the festival pays tribute to William Shakespeare, whose work has inspired writers and poets for centuries.
The festival begins Friday, Oct. 2 at 6:30 p.m. to coincide with Bixby Knolls’ “First Fridays” — a free, monthly community art-walk and block party along Atlantic Avenue — with street poetry and free, on-demand typewriter poems outside the theater and a playful stage show inside.
On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 3 and 4, the theater will open at 2 p.m. and bring a slew of poets, musicians and performance artists to the theater. Books and merchandise will be for sale in the theater’s lobby and poetry readings, live music and performance artists on stage starting at 3 p.m.
Tickets for each full day of performances are $21.50 including fees and can be purchased at LBShakespeare.org.
Linda Ravenswood — a writer, performance artist and founder and editor of nonprofit publishing house The Los Angeles Press — has been volunteering to help organize the festival since Leveque launched it in 2022.
“I think it’s the most ambitious lineup we’ve had so far,” Ravenswood said of this year’s scheduled performers. “It’s a real celebration.”
Among the featured poets this weekend are several from Long Beach, including Nancy Woo, Vietnam veteran Jay Eiser, Youth Poets performing on Sunday and Leveque herself, who will join others for “Legends Among Us,” an experimental spoken-word performance on Sunday at 8 p.m.
Other notable poets include what Ravenswood describes as the “elite crown jewels” of the West Coast poetry community — Los Angeles Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace and former Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson; former San Francisco Poet Laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin; activist poet Matt Sedillo, literary director of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles; Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine; poet Richard Modiano, former director of the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center; and Los Angeles performance poet and actor S.A. Griffin.
“If one of these people was going to be there, it would be enough of a draw, but we have like seven of the most celebrated writers that California can possibly offer up,” Ravenswood said.
The festival also includes poets who are also musicians and performance artists, such as Anna Homler — who Ravenswood says integrates music and art using her body, words and objects — Jeff Schwartz and “immersive artist” Terence Leclere, who will provide background music for some of the poets.
“I love something that’s a blend,” Ravenswood said. “Performance art and poetry works for me, because there’s a literary component, there’s maybe a musical component, there’s a performative component.”
The festival also includes visual artists, prose writers and a journalist, she said, allowing “lots of different artistic expressions,” among the dozens scheduled.
Ravenswood herself will be behind the typewriter Friday night, writing poetry on demand for donations. She said people seek poems for a variety of reasons: because their dog died or they need marriage vows or it’s their mother’s birthday next week and they need a meaningful and specifically tailored “instant Hallmark card.”
But that is just the start to the three-day, multi-genre festival, she said.
“Come to have your mind blown,” Ravenswood said, “because it’s going to be maybe the best show ever.”
The fourth annual Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s Poetry Festival starts on Friday, Oct. 2 at the Helen Borgers Theatre at 4250 Atlantic Ave. in Bixby Knolls. Purchase tickets for live performances here.