Share your voice. Hear a story. Feed your soul.

In West African traditions, the baobab tree—the “Tree of Life”—is the gathering place where communities come together to share stories, preserve history, and pass down wisdom across generations. It is beneath the baobab that the griot—storyteller, oral historian, poet, musician, and keeper of community knowledge—has long served as the living memory of the people.

Join us for an evening of great food and community as we honor this tradition at Wilkes University. Share your poetry, tell a tale, perform a song, read a folktale, deliver a spoken word piece, share a family story or life lesson, try your hand at freestyle verse, or simply come, eat, and listen. Performances should be no more than 4 minutes each.

The event will feature Deirdre Van Walters, a spoken word teaching artist and the president of Basement Poetry, a Bethlehem, PA, theatre group that is committed to serving the community through raw and original art that informs its audiences. The evening will also feature a performance by Assétou Xango, a spoken word artist at Wilkes University who has studied with griots in Mali, West Africa.

Organized by: Multicultural Student Coalition (MSC)