A poetry performance at the Geneva Room in the Warren Hunting Smith Library at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.

From the Fisher Center website:

Garcia and Penniman are poets who moonlight as street artists, and art activists who deploy their weapons of mass imagination to co-teach poetry and political education to prisoners and young people through the Osborne Association, East Harlem Tutorial Program, the Youth Leadership Project of the Incarcerated Mothers Program, and the NYC Public School system.

A tattoo artist from Colombia and a gymnast from the back roads of Massachusetts, they have rocked international festivals from Maine to South Africa, headlined shows at more than 40 colleges and universities, andpropelled the 2004 Lyrics on Lockdown tour, a national effort to raise consciousness about the criminal justice system in and outside of prisons. They have just released their CD “Ammunition.”

Before their 8 p.m. performance, Climbing PoeTree will present the
Climbing PoeTree Workshop - Smokin’ Wordz. Attending this workshop may elevate your heart rate and risk your complacency. Contains high levels of explosively expressive, politically charged, rapid-fire, spoken word poetics. Do not operate heavy machinery while under the influence of this workshop. Words can be weapons. Poetry may be addictive. High doses may result in rebirth. Participants will witness live spoken word performance, undergo a blindfolded exercise designed to evoke memory and generate imagery, write and perform, contribute to a group poem and participate in S.T.I.T.C.H.E.D., an international story-gathering project.

Events are co-sponsored with Intercultural Affairs, the Diversity and Social Justice and Equity Committee and the Provost’s office as part of the Hobart and William Smith diversity symposium.