Rumi’s Caravan is a poetic ensemble dedicated to restoring the soul of the world through a revival of the oral tradition of poetry. Our presentation is unscripted; each of us has committed a body of poetry to memory. This will not be a reading or a slam but rather a poetic conversation.

Rumi’s Caravan was first assembled in Sebastopol, CA in 2000 as a vehicle to convey our love of the oral tradition of poetry. It is our experience that when poetry – learned by heart and embodied – is spoken, it carries something of Soul with it and is, at once, more apprehensible and more meaningful to the listener than poetry read from a page.

The original intention was three-fold:

• To support local community benefit organizations

• To build community

• To help restore the oral tradition of poetry, to inspire audiences with a new imagination of the possible.

Ever since, the Caravan has delighted audiences at our annual signature event in Sonoma County combining music, poetry and festivity. Critics have called us “the premier poetry event of the year for the North Bay.”