Immerse yourself in celebrating freedom, inclusion, and democracy with Whitman on Walls! (WoW!) at Rollins College. This outdoor short film and live performance event will take place on Mills Lawn at Rollins College, November 8 from 6 – 8 p.m. 

Inspired by Walt Whitman's radical “Song of Myself” (1855), NYC-based theatre company Compagnia de’ Colombari produced seven short films with 50 performers worldwide, bringing Whitman’s iconic words to life in startling and beautiful new ways. Each film will be followed by performances from Orlando poets and writers who "talk back to Whitman" in their own words.

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, WoW! is touring all 50 states by 2026 and selected Rollins College as the Florida location.

Before the live performance, the College Archives and Special Collections will be hosting an exhibit in the library lobby from 4 – 6 p.m.: Book Arts on Transcendentalism, featuring special items from the Walt Whitman Collection and the Rollins College Book Art collection.
 

Featured performances by 

	Teege Braune, a writer and finalist for the Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize, The Driftwood Press Short Story Contest, and a semifinalist for the Disquiet Literary Prize. His work has been published in various journals, anthologies, and magazines, including Cosmic Horror Monthly.
	Tyler Gillespie, the author of the poetry collections the nature machine! (Autofocus) and Florida Man: Poems, Revisited (Burrow Press).
	Audrey Hope is an artist whose work examines our ritualized relationships to nature and objects, approaching topics such as tourism, collecting, and pilgrimage with the aim to reveal them as both life-affirming and fraught. Her artworks emerge from photographs, unfolding through found material, textiles and metal.
	Susan Lilley, a writer, teacher, and Florida native. Her poetry and non-fiction have been published in American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, The Florida Review, and Gulf Coast, among other journals. Her full collection is Venus in Retrograde (Burrow Press). She was named Orlando’s inaugural poet laureate in 2017.
	Leah Sandler, an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator based in Central Florida, and author of A Field Guide to Embodied Archiving, published by Burrow Press in 2021, and Notes from the Archivist, published by Bodiless Editions in 2024.
	Amy Watkins, a Winter Park resident and the author of the poetry chapbooks Milk & Water, Lucky, and Wolf Daughter.
	Felichia Wright, a writer, theatre director, actor, cultural coordinator™, advocate, and educator. She engages an interdisciplinary approach to her work, infusing storytelling, activism, movement, and cultural memory. She currently serves as the Director of Student Support in the Student Center for Community & Connections at Rollins College.

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