Artifactory

Artifactory was an annual collision between poetry & Kalamazoo/southwest Michigan artifacts & history. During Artifactory, historical commentary is given by experts and winning poems are read by the poets. This fusion of poetry and history has included topics such as blizzards, parks, tornadoes, one-way streets, celery, corsets, Gibson guitars, Elvis spottings, Michigan summers, Michigan winters, Checker Cabs, and, of course, the Kalamazoo mummy.

Friends of Poetry collaborated with the Kalamazoo Valley Museum on this venture from 2004-2017. After a two-year hiatus, the project resumed in 2019 with Zhang Legacy Collections Center hosting the event and providing historical commentary inspired by the selected poems.