Whitman on Walls! (WoW!)

Whitman on Walls! (WoW!) is a hybrid project juxtaposing film and live performance in response to New York poet Walt Whitman’s radical “Song of Myself.” Devised by Compagnia de’ Colombari Director Karin Coonrod in response to performance cancellations in 2020, Colombari’s original production of MORE OR LESS I AM, based on Whitman’s iconic poem, was transformed into seven short films featuring 50 performers from around the world.

WoW! is a touring event that unites communities and their local poets and musicians with Colombari performers on film; a movie screening meets a poetry slam. Each film is followed by responses from local poets from various backgrounds and ages who “talk back to Whitman” in their own words, challenging or quarreling with him, blending cinema and live recitation and expanding the Whitmanic vision of democratic interdependence. In collaboration with institutional partners and living poets across the globe, WoW! activates us in our communities toward freedom.

For this performance presented in partnership with Beinecke Library, the poetic responses are curated by New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont Influence Little. The event features Little and fellow poets Silent Quill, Chief Michael Peterson, Yex Diaz, Tarishi Midnight Shuler, Phil C. Alexander, and Godis Tymani Rain.