Magic City Poetry Festival

04/29/2026

Tomorrow night. Spaces still available. Come share your words in a beautiful, peaceful space. Make community.

April 30, 2026 | 6:30 p.m. Private residence A wonderful time of poetry and community. Bring your own poems or poems by others to share with the group. Laura Secord will facilitate our time together at a private home in the Cahaba Heights area. Registration required. Space is limited.&nb

04/22/2026

Each year Magic City Poetry Festival celebrates the life of Chief Donald Lewis Jones with a memorial scholarship gifted to a student who exemplifies one of Chief Jones’s defining characteristics: perseverance through hardships.

MCPF is proud to announce that Zy'Coryous Abrams of Carver High School is this year's recipient!

Abrams is one of six children and is a first generation college student. He said the scholarship "would help me make college more affordable and reduce the financial stress on my family."

"College will allow me to live my dreams and discover more about myself," he said. "Receiving this scholarship will truly mean the world to me and my family."

Abrams plans to attend Sewanee University to study history.

04/15/2026

🎉 Congratulations to Alexia Jayy of Mobile for winning season 29 of "The Voice." 🎉

04/15/2026

The Magic City Poetry Festival celebrates poetry's healing and communal aspects Thursday and Friday!

Thursday, we're at East Village Arts for Poetry, A Healer in Hard Times. Friday, The Threshold Center hosts Alabama Poet Laureate Jacqueline Trimble for an Alabama Poet Laureate Celebration and Belonging Through Poetry.

DETAILS AT A GLANCE:

Poetry, A Healer in Hard Times
April 16, 2025 | 7 p.m.
East Village Arts
Audience registration: Add event to cart at MCPF website (in bio) to register

Alabama Poet Laureate Celebration and Belonging through Poetry
April 17 | 6:45 p.m.
The Threshold Center
Audience registration: Add event to cart at MCPF website (in bio) to register

Full details are at our website.

04/08/2026

Registration has been fixed. If you are registering on your phone you need to turn the phone horizontal to add it to the cart/see the button.

For the April 16 event at East Village Arts, registration is not required, but helps us with seating etc. If you had problems registering, just come. We want all our community's spirits present.

04/06/2026

Magic City Poetry Festival board member Charlotte Donlon was on Talk of Alabama this afternoon! Watch the video here:

For more information about the Magic City Poetry Festival, visit magiccitypoetryfestival.org

04/06/2026

One more day until the Magic City Poetry Festival begins!

The festival starts April 7; for all details about this year’s events, head to magiccitypoetryfestival.org, link in our bio!

Please use the hashtag to help spread the word throughout the festival!

04/06/2026

One more day until the Magic City Poetry Festival begins!

The festival starts April 7; for all details about this year's events, head to magiccitypoetryfestival.org!

Please use the hashtag to help spread the word throughout the festival!

03/05/2026

Thank You Books and the MCPF partner to launch Ashley Jones’ latest book, What the Mirror Said: The Necessity of Black Women in Poetry.

This is Jones's first work of prose, a part-critical and part-personal essay collection that explores the influence of nine Black women poets in Jones's writing and life. Intimate, historical, and scholarly, What the Mirror Said is both the origin story of an influential poet and a strong case for why and how the work of Black women artists remains vital.

Ashley will be in conversation with writer (and sister!) Monique Jones, as well as poet/scholar Dr. L. Lamar Wilson, whose books will also be available for purchase. A signing will follow the discussion.

DETAILS AT A GLANCE
Thank You Books and The Magic City Poetry Festival present: Ashley M. Jones Launch for WHAT THE MIRROR SAID, in conversation with Monique Jones and Dr. L. Lamar Wilson
May 3, 2026 | 3 p.m.
Thank You Books
Audience registration: RSVP at Thank You Books' website (link also found at magiccitypoetryfestival.org)

07/21/2025

Alabama State Poet Laureate Nominations close on July 25! Click the link in our bio to learn more about this role and how your favorite Alabama poet could represent our state from 2026-2029 🖊️📚