This event is part of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Performance Series, an annual series inspired by the haiku tradition and the work of Nick Virgilio, a prolific haiku poet who spent much of his life in Camden.
About the Performance
The poet Sonia Sanchez has said that “the soul and spirit are formalized, they are formal things. They’re blues, they’re spirituals, they’re haiku, they’re tanka, they’re all these things that reach your heart and your spirit and your soul.” Poet Yolanda Wisher & double bassist Mark Palacio present hokkuchi, a meeting of haiku & eros inspired by Sonia Sanchez’s most pulse-stirring & blush-worthy work. Performing original haiku sequences set to blues changes, Wisher & Palacio explore the intimate connection between form & feeling.
About the Performers
Hailing from Germantown via Ambler, North Wales, Brooklyn, and Belize, the husband & wife duo of double bassist Mark Palacio and poet Yolanda Wisher has been marrying art & activism in Philadelphia since 1999 when they met at an open mic in Old City. A largely self-taught musician, Palacio is a fifth/sixth grade teacher by day. A two-time poet laureate & Pew Fellow, Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro (Hanging Loose Press, 2014) & the co-editor of Peace is a Haiku Song (Philadelphia Mural Arts, 2013). Together they have created a rogue poetry collective based in West Philly, a neighborhood poetry festival in Germantown, a band called The Afroeaters, & a kid named Thelonious.