Even while poets around the world are organizing the largest poetry reading in history, poets in too many countries around the world will be silent, out of fear for their safety.

Join Split This Rock and Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies, as we give voice to some of those poets for one day. We’ll take a short walk to the embassies of three countries — Yemen, Burma, and Turkmenistan — where citizens’ rights of free speech have been suppressed, where poets, writers, and other freedom lovers have been threatened, arrested, and murdered for their words and their activism, and we’ll stand with the poets and writers of those few places where a few hints of openings are lighting the darkness.

As we stand in witness outside the embassies, we’ll read poems by poets from those nations so that they, too, may participate in 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

100 Thousand Poets for Change is the brainchild of Bay Area poet and publisher Michael Rothenberg. The events planned range from poetry and peace gatherings in strife-torn Kabul and Jalalabad to 20 collective poetic actions in Mexico City where poets, painters, filmmakers and musicians will spread the word of peace and non-violence throughout the city with day long readings and workshops.

There are over 270 events in the United States, 29 in India, 7 in Nigeria, 17 in Canada, 19 in Great Britain, 5 in China, with more being added each day. All those involved are hoping, through their actions and events, to seize and redirect the political and social dialogue of the day and turn the narrative of civilization towards peace and sustainability.

The gathering will start at 11 am outside of the Embassy of Yemen. For more information click here or call 305-753-4569.