NEW ORLEANS YOUTH
POETRY FESTIVAL

The New Orleans Youth Open Mic (N.O.Y.O.M.) & Ashé Cultural Arts Center present: THE 2023 NEW ORLEANS YOUTH POETRY FESTIVAL

Join us for the return of the New Orleans Youth Poetry Festival (NOYPF) taking place April 14th & 15th, 2023!

The NOYPF is a two day youth storytelling festival at the Ashé Powerhouse Theater (1731 Baronne Street) that highlights the next generation of spoken word artists, poets, rappers and literary based performers from and in New Orleans. 

This year's entire festival takes place at Ashé Powerhouse Theater (1731 Baronne Street) and is headlined by nationally ranked AfroLatinx spoken word artist Gabriel Ramirez (April 14th 6:30pm) and features the Women of the Word showcase (April 15th, 7pm) featuring Akilah Toney (former NOYPF Slam Champion), Brittney Ree Botts, Ebony Stewart, Jessica Care Moore, Shacondria iCon Sibley, and Sunni Patterson.

See below for our full schedule of events and to register for the youth slam & workshops (sign up early, limited spaces available).

FRIDAY APRIL 14th, 2023: Youth Slam & Mixer 

REGISTER FOR YOUTH SLAM (12 slots open) 

Slam 6:30-8pm: Youth Slam

8-10pm: Youth Mixer w/ DJ HellNah

Come see 12 youth poets in the city battle it out for hundreds of dollars in prizes and the title of New Orleans Youth Grand Slam Champion! Afterparty/mixer hosted by DJ HellNah (@noob_crybot)

SATURDAY APRIL 15th, 2023: Workshops, Closing Event & Women of the Word showcase

11am-12:30pm: Affirmations as a Form of Resistance with Gabriel Ramirez

12:30-1pm: LUNCH

1-2:30pm: Poems for the Start of the World with FreeQuency

2:30-3pm: Closing Event/Reading

REGISTER FOR WORKSHOPS (15 slots open for each workshop)

Workshop 1: I am Here: Affirmation as a form of Resistance by Gabriel Ramirez
“Not being who I am is unacceptable.”
- Nikky Finney
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,
it is self-preservation, and that is an act of
political warfare.” - Audre Lorde

A catalyst to choosing oneself through difficult times and practicing the importance of our truth, “I Am Here: Affirmation as a form of Resistance” is a workshop where participants can speak back to what has made us feel small, invisible, and impossible throughout our lives. This workshop encourages participants to reclaim their bodies and histories. Whether it is a bully from childhood, someone who told you that you can’t, or a country with systems that have shown they don't care whether you are alive, it’s time to denounce the false truths others have given us about who we are and our worth.

Workshop 2: Poems for the Start of the World by FreeQuency

Although we occupy the same planet, there are many many worlds within it. It can be argued that each of us is a world into our own. Global catastrophes like COVID 19 tend to make people focus on the negative aspects of the world endings forgetting that some worlds should end or should never have existed in the first place. As Arundati Roy said - this pandemic is a portal. This begs the question, a portal to what? What roles do artists play in world building? What worlds dare we imagine through our words that we have previously named impossible? Rooted in the belief that “Words Create Worlds”, this workshop will ask participants to engage in radical imagination and ideation as we write poems about the world(s) we want to exist in and be.

NEW ORLEANS YOUTH OPEN MIC NIGHT (NOYOM) is a collective of Greater New Orleans-area youth, poets, educators, and activists whose mission is to provide enriching youth literary experiences, create safe spaces for youth expression, elevate youth voices, and cultivate a sustainable literary culture for the next generation.