“Based in our nation’s capitol,” says Sarah Browning, co-director of the biennial gathering, “Split This Rock provides opportunities for all who gather to speak out for a more just order of our nation’s priorities.”

Browning, the mastermind behind Split This Rock as well as DC Poets Against the War, which began in February 2003 and from which the festival was spawned, is a poet and activist herself and has worked tirelessly to bring together a diversity of progressive voices into a common nexus of social activism.

“The poets we invite to be featured at the festival,” explains Browning, “are in the world, are poet-citizens, in a variety of ways.”

Festival features include such venerables as poet, activist and university professor Martin Espada, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize whose accolades also include the American Book Award, and former Washingtonian and American University professor Cornelius Eady, one of the founders of Cave Canem, an organization for African American poets, whose awards include the Lamont Poetry Prize. International voices include Nigerian poet, novelist and torture-survivor Chris Abani, Iraqi poet and documentary film-maker Sinan Antoon, Cuban poet and critic Nancy Morejón and Palestinian poet and member of Doctors Without Borders Fady Joudah. Also included are Native American poet Allison Hedge Coke, Haitian American and self-dubbed pomosexual Lenelle Moise and poetry slammer Andrea Gibson, winner of the 2008 Women of the World Poetry Slam.

And, of course, there are those daily open mics where everyone – that means you -- gets to have their say.

The main venue for the festival is Bell Multicultural High School in Columbia Heights, a fitting location for such a sundry group of talent, with readings, panel discussions, a book fair, films and other forms of literary subversion also taking place at Busboys and Poets, a major contributor to the festival, and Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage.

And the most public and, perhaps, the most exciting event of the festival will take place at that most public of all edifices in the country -- the Capitol Building -- when the entire gathering, a group that might best be described as Poet-Lobbyists, will uproot itself and wend its way to the halls of Congress.

“We will again be taking poetry to the halls of power,” Browning explains, “this time to Congress, where, with poetic language and vision, we’ll be advising lawmakers on how to spend the next $1 trillion, now that we’ve spent that outrageous amount on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Browning’s vision and purpose are clear: poets and artists will not remain silent while the country is waging war after unjust war and ignoring the needs of its citizens. What remains to be seen is just what effect this will have on public policy and discourse, with the anti-intellectual movement (how’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?) fully wagging its sharp, folksy tongue. Still, for those with a love for poetry and a passion for progressive politics, Split This Rock is a must attend.

Split This Rock will be held from March 10 through 13. Registration is $75 until February 20 when it goes up to $85, with student and one day passes available. Tickets for individual readings will also be sold at the door: $8 for adults and $5 for students. Free events open to the public include the Social Change Book Fair as well as other events to be announced. See their web site for full details.