POET PROFILE

MARY WESTON FORDHAM (1844-1905) was a poet, educator writer and teacher. Very little is known of her.

She is best known for her collection of poetry MAGNOLIA LEAVES, published in 1897.

To read a brief bio and sample her poetry GOOGLE her name.

poetry challenge twenty six

WRITE A POEM WHICH DESCRIBES THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU VIEW THE ABOVE IMAGE.

POETRY EVENT - CHICAGO

(In)visible

Saturday, Aug 1, 6:00PM

Poetry Foundation
61 West Superior Street
Free admission

Featuring new work from Fatimah Asghar, Jasmine Barber, Britteney Kapri, Reginald Eldridge Jr., Dianna Harris, Tim Henderson, and Jamila Woods, (In)visible is the culminating reading and performance for the 2014-2015 Young Chicago Authors Teaching Artist cohort. (In)visible asks how the body considers trauma and space, and engages notions of the body as point of origin and as target for erasure.

POETRY EVENT - NYC

Poet Claudia Rankine reads from Citizen, her recent meditation on race in America, then sits for a conversation on art, trauma and social justice with Cleonie White and Sarah Stemp, clinicians from the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Society.

“Claudia Rankine’s Citizen comes at you like doom,” wrote Hilton Als. “It’s the best note in the wrong song that is America. Its various realities—‘mistaken’ identity,’ social racism, the whole fabric of urban and suburban life—are almost too much to bear, but you bear them, because it’s the truth.”

A co-presentation with the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology

Poet Yusef Komunyakaa and actor Wendell Pierce—both Louisiana natives—share a stage for the first time.

Komunyakaa’s new collection is The Emperor of Water Clocks. “His voice, whether it embodies the specific experiences of a black man, a soldier in Vietnam, or a child in Bogalusa, Louisiana, is universal. It shows us in ever deeper ways what it is to be human,” wrote Toi Derricotte. Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, Pierce ("The Wire" and "Treme"), writes about “art’s power to transform us and the world” in his new memoir, The Wind in the Reeds: A Storm, A Play, and the City That Would Not Be Broken.

To learn more GOOGLE their names.      Log on to  92y.org for scheduled dates and times.

READ THIS POEM OUT LOUD

By the Stream   Paul Laurence Dunbar

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass, How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens             pass, And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads, Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads. And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go, For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show, And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries, When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.

poetry challenge twenty five

USING THE FOLLOWING WORD GROUP: IMAGINE, SOMEONE, LISTEN, WORDS, WRITE A POEM WHICH DESCRIBES WHAT A "BROKEN HEART" FEELS LIKE.

POETIC BIRTHDAYS FOR JULY

MARGARET WALKER - (7/7/1915 - 11/30/1998) - Was well noted for her poetry, but she was also a distinguished professor of literature at Jackson State College. A historically Black school, she worked there for 30 years (1949-1979). In 1968 she founded the Institute for the Study of History, Life, and Culture of Black people. It is now called the Margaret Walker Center.

Google her name to read her poetry and learn more





JUNE JORDAN - 7/9/1936 - 6/14/2002  - While serving as a full professor at the University of California Berkeley, in three departments, English, Women Studies, and African American Studies, Jordan was known as the "Poet of the People" (1989-2002).  In 1991 she founded the "Poetry for the People" program. It's aim was to inspire and empower students to use poetry as a means of artistic expression.

Google her name to read her poetry and learn more

poetry challenge twenty four

WRITE A POEM TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU WRITE POETRY. You know why! Now put it into words so we all can understand.

POETRY EVENT - CHICAGO

A Celebration of International Poetry: New Generation African Poets Amy Lukau, Tsitsi Jaji, Ladan Osman, Viola Allo & Warsan Shire

Thursday, Jul 9, 7:00PM

Poetry Foundation
61 West Superior Street
Free Admission
Website

The Poetry Society of America continues its 2015 national series, A Celebration of International Poetry, at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. The series will travel to six cities and focus on major international poets from any era.

In this third installment, we celebrate five emerging poets from Africa, Amy Lukau, Tsitsi Jaji, Ladan Osman, Viola Allo, andWarsan Shire, whose work has been recently published in the New Generation African Poetschapbook series, a publishing initiative of the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF). View previous chapbooks in the series, including works by Jaji, Osman, and Shire at Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute's Poets in the World. Co-editors Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes, along with APBF Editorial Board Member Matthew Shenoda, will discuss the project and introduce the emerging poets, who will then read from their work.

Co-sponsored with the Poetry Society of America