Poetour
Kistrech International Poetry Festival is a poetour festival, and thus an annual destination for poets from around the world.
Performances
Spoken-word, rap, song, poetry reading, oral poetry, music instrument-playing, and performances are featured.
Support
Kistrech International Poetry Festival in Kenya gets support for its participating poets from art agencies and embassies around the world.
Festival Founder
The Founder of Kistrech International Poetry Festival is Dr. Christopher Okemwa. He got interested to start the event after participating in poetry festivals around the world.
In 2013 he invited a handful of poets and had its inaugural edition. It was this time when Okemwa learnt that it was not easy to start and sustain a poetry event. He was utterly discouraged after the inaugural event came to an end. In this first edition, Okemwa spent approximately USD 5, 000, money which belonged to his family.
With encouragement from his wife, Okemwa decided to hold the event in 2014. Fortunately, Okemwa was lucky: Kisii University came in to support and offered support all the way to 2017 when it was joined by the Israeli Embassy and other Embassies to support poets.