Wordstock, a festival dedicated to celebrating and challenging the power of language, will make itself felt on the streets and in the businesses of State College beginning today and lasting until July 12.

The festival, in its second year, has been expanded from a small set of activities planned at the last minute to this year's edition.

This summer's festival will include events that range from poetry readings to plays to a book-publishing workshop.

It aims to challenge the boundaries that exist between the speaker and audience, page and performance, the body and language, time and space, and the private and political.

"State College needs a language festival. Arts Fest seems to be geared to a different sort of audience," said Paul Kellermann, one of the event's organizers.

"We want a festival that deals strictly with language."

The purpose of the festival is to create something that not only explores the possibilities surrounding language, but also helps to encourage those in the audience to become participants in the performances.

"Poetry and literature are thought of as higher pursuits stuck in an ivory tower or in Burrowes Building," Kellermann said.

"We think that literature belongs to everyone."

Kellerman is not only helping to organize the week.

His performance, Uncle Kelley's Instant Pharmacology Show -- which will include spoken word, song and some contemporary dance -- is the second event of this year's festival.

Though Kellermann said it wasn't his idea to call himself a "headliner," he does plan to cater his work to the special event.

"I always have a few tricks up my sleeves," he said.

"We will begin with the unexpected."

The band Second Person Present will accompany him, and the event will begin at 8 p.m. today in Fraser Plaza.

The 20th anniversary celebration of the literary poetry journal, Long Shots, will also to take place in State College during Wordstock.

Poets published in the journal will appear at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Zeno's Pub, 100 College Ave., for a poetry reading.

The journal -- spearheaded by New Jersey poets Danny Shot and Eliot Katz and helped along by beat poet Allen Ginsberg -- aims to produce "writing for the real world."

Since its inception, it has received help and contributions from artists including William Burroughs, Tom Waits and Sonia Sanchez.

Elaine Meder, an event organizer and
co-owner of Webster's Bookstore Café,
128 S. Allen St., said she is especially excited about the anniversary celebration.

"They're bringing in all these amazing poets," she said.

"I'm so excited to be meeting Danny Shot."

There will also be two plays taking place during the week.

The local production company Next Stage will be performing Alan Arkin's one-act play Virtual Reality at 7 p.m. tonight and Wednesday at Creative Oasis, 133 E. Beaver Ave.

The comedy is about the meeting of two strangers who create a dramatic reality that results in nothing.

Besides the performances by writers and actors, however, State College residents will also find plenty of open poetry readings to attend, including one exclusively for "bad poetry."

Some of the readings will also feature open mics, and anyone is encouraged to attend and take the stage.

"It's meant to be a celebration, not a critique," Meder added.

Wordstock will culminate in the Grand Allusion Ball, a masquerade fundraiser for Schlow Memorial Library.

For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit the Wordstock Web site (www.wordstockfestival.org).