Jennifer Falu filled the room with laughter on a night in June. I watched the people sitting around me, and their faces lit up as they listened, and they turned to each other. This is spoken word. This is poetry on its feet and in the streets.
WordxWord gathers writers to perform their own work live. They come into coffee shops and museums, and they stand on corners. They compete in poetry and story slams, picking up the mic without a script. They hold events year-round, across the county, and a weeklong festival through downtown Pittsfield in August.
In her own words, Falu turns herself into water, deep and clear and open in the sunlight. She turns to look the room full on with sadness and warmth in her voice.
She says, “You can swim — can’t you?”
WordxWord brings live performance to many places in the Berkshires. They hold contemporary conversations at the Berkshire Museum year-round. In summer they hold a week of events on Pittsfield in early August — with head-to-head haiku, Crosstalk at the Tyler Street Lab and a poetry sCrawl through town. They pair dance and spoken word in the gardens at The Mount in Lenox, and more.
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