FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5th Poetry Downtown Festival Celebrates American Indian Poetry – but it’s not easy!
[Rotterdam, August 6, 2025]
In 2021, I decided to give America a poetry festival to celebrate my 50th birthday. It began as a two-hour poetry reading dedicated to the life and work of Kenneth Patchen with ‘Get Ready To Die’ in front of the Poets Monument on Venice Beach, Los Angeles. The year after we celebrate Charles Bukowski with ‘Some People Never Go Gazy’, in 2023 Sylvia Plath with ‘I Never Could Talk To You’ and last year Edgar Allan Poe with ‘The Raven’. That led to a boycot and this year we hit the fan again.
Boycot Edgar Allan Poe
As some people decided to boycot our 2024 festival as they consider Edgar Allan Poe a slave trader. I had to issue the following statement at our website last year: https://poetrydowntown.com/edgar-allan-poe-slavery-statement/
We hit the fan again
This year, we already encounterd months ago problems because the John Trudell’s family didn’t allow me to celebrate the work and life of American Indian activist-poet John Trudell on the tenth anniversary of his passing (February 15, 1946 Omaha, NE – December 8, 2015 Santa Clara County, CA) with ‘Look At Us’.
From birth to death
Like each year, I planned numerous events in the birthcity and deathcity of the poet we honor. In this case we would kick off John Trudell’s tribute in Omaha and conclude it in San Jose and like always we would connect both cities with the Amtrak Poetry Train. Even in Denver and San Francisco I planned some poetry readings.
I cancelled all
The family though didn’t allow us to celebrate his work! Due to that I dediced to cancel the whole celebration! I was sick of it. I didn’t only cancel my 5th birthday present to America and it’s Poetry Train but also the Poetry Cab during the National Poetry Month. Learn more about it at:
– https://poetrydowntown.com/poetry-downtown-festival-celebrates-the-life-and-work-of-john-trudell/
– https://poetrydowntown.com/5th-poetry-downtown-festival-canceled-due-to-family-restrictions/.
One more time
Months later, I picked myself up from the floor and took the decision to try it one more time. I decided to change the celebration from ‘John Trudull – Look At Us’ into ‘American Indian Poetry – Turtle Island’ and I started to reach out all independent bookstores, public libraries, creative writing professors, poetry reviews, poets and writers between Omaha and San Jose again. I contacted them already in December 2024 and January 2025 and it was easy to get in contact with them again. As we changed our celebration we lost a clear birthcity and deathcity and that was great because that saved me a lot of money and it would make the festival even better. See the final festival guide at https://poetrydowntown.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/poetry-downtown-2025-turtle-island.pdf
I am not American Indian
But then one poet in Connecticut withdrew his poem. It made me sad, angry, upset and I wrote him and all our followers on social media that you don’t need to be an American Indian to celebrate American Indian Poetry:
That actually created another backslash that urged me to come with another statement and I really don’t know what to say. It actually seems pointless what I say. For some it’s just not appropriate that a foreigner ask Americans to write him a ‘Turtle Island’ poem to celebrate his birthday!!!!!!
So what should I do?
I decided already to save my money and to stay at home in the Netherlands. Nevertheless I try to survive and to make the best of it. That’s why I ask others to help me to write this STATEMENT and to get poems from all over the United States because I still have that dream to get within five years entries from all over America. We have only 24 days left to turn the last 18 white states black! see our Make America Write Again map below.
More info:
5th Poetry Downtown Festival
Erik Van Loon
www.poetrydowntown.com
poetrydowntownfestival@gmail.com
EU +31 6 E VAN LOON (+31 6 3 826 5666)
Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Tiktok: @poetrydowntown
