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Poetry Speaks

Poetry Writing Workshops

Prepare for stage and print @ Main. For poets who seek to get their drafts edited and performance or print-ready. 3 week poetry workshops lead to staged readings by the participants.

Main Library/Finishing Poetry- For poets who seek to get their drafts edited and performance or print-ready. Participants bring two to three of their original poems to workshop through to finished pieces. We'll explore the difference between poems on the page versus poems on the stage.  Led by Jim Ferris, and Joel Lipman with guest poet, Kevin Coval, on 4/11/18.  The culminating performance on 4/25/18 will include featured poet, Erin Adair-Hodges.

Jim Ferris is the current Poet Laureate of Lucas County.  He is an award-winning poet and performance artist, author of Slouching Towards Guantanamo, Facts of Life, and The Hospital Poems.  Ferris, who hold a doctorate in performance studies, has performed at the Kennedy Center and across the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, recent performance work includes the solo performance piece Scars: A Love Story.  His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, ranging from the Georgia Review to Text & Performance Quarterly, from the Michigan Quarterly Review to weekly newspapers.  He has won awards for creative nonfiction and mathematics as well as performance and poetry. Ferris holds the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo, where he directs the Disability Studies Program.

Joel Lipman was the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Lucas County [2008-2013] and is Emeritus Professor of English, at the University of Toledo. Joel’s poetry honors include the Ohio Governor’s Award, and Fulbright, Harry Ransom Humanities Center and Lilly Library fellowships. In 2011, he received the Ohioana State Library Pegasus Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry.

Kevin Coval is a poet and community builder. As the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, and professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago—where he teaches hip-hop aesthetics—he’s mentored thousands of young writers, artists, and musicians.  He is the author and editor of 10 books, including A People's History of Chicago published in 2017. 

Erin Adair-Hodges is the author of Let's All Die Happy, winner of the 2016 Agnes Lynch Starrett prize from the Pitt Poetry Series. A Rona Jaffe-Bread Loaf scholar, Claudia Emerson-Sewanee scholar, and winner of the 2014 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize from The Georgia Review, her poems can be found in The Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, Boulevard, and other journals. She is currently a visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Toledo.