News Release

03/19/09 PPL Announces First Annual Poetry Festival at PPL -- April 2 - 9

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Providence Public Library’s (PPL) Central Library presents the first Poetry Festival at PPL -- a series of events to celebrate local and national poets’ writing in English and Spanish and to promote the reading and writing of poetry in our communities. Events are scheduled at the Central Library, 150 Empire Street, Providence, as follows:

Poetry Movie—Slam Nation: The Sport of Spoken Word*
Thursday, April 2: 6:00 pm, Auditorium Theater, 3rd floor
(Run time: approx. 100 minutes. NR)
*Before the feature film, we will show a special animated poetry short called Tongue of the Hidden from the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

About Slam Nation
This film captures the finals of the 1996 National Poetry Slam won by the mighty Providence team! Our local heroes were the underdogs in the competition, and this documentary captures the often cutthroat world of spoken-word scene. Beginning in New York City at the Nuyorican Poets Café’s Grand Slam tournament, the film follows slam champion Saul Williams and other top poets of the day as they journey to the annual National Poetry Slam. The drama unfolds as rivalries are revealed and controversies arise, underscoring larger questions of art versus ego and self-expression versus self-advancement. Produced and directed by Emmy award-winner Paul Devlin (Power Trip).

PPL recognizes the rights of parents to determine which content is suitable for their child and encourages previewing this film if parents have questions about appropriate content.

Evening Poetry Reception & Reading
Friday, April 3: 6:00-8:00 pm, Barnard Room, 3rd Floor
Featuring poets Tom Chandler, Forrest Gander, and Renee Soto.
6:00 pm: Reception, Book Sale, Book Signing—Includes silent auction of letterpress poems printed and designed at the AS200 Print Shop.
7:00 pm: Poetry Reading

About the Poets
Tom Chandler served as poet laureate of Rhode Island from 2000-2007. He has been named Phi Beta Kappa Poet at Brown University and has been a featured poet at the Robert Frost homestead. His poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio. He has written commissioned poems for the State of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, and Waterfire, and has twice been named inaugural poet for Providence mayoral inaugurations. He is a columnist for The Providence Journal, a professor of creative writing at Bryant University, and founder and editor of the Bryant Literary Review. His fifth book of poems, Toy Firing Squad, was published in 2008.

Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert in Barstow, California and grew up in Virginia. He spent significant periods in San Francisco, Dolores Hidalgo (Mexico), and Eureka Springs, Arkansas before moving to Rhode Island. He holds degrees in both English literature and geology. Gander is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brown University and the author of more than a dozen books, including the acclaimed novel, As a Friend, and the poetry collections Eye Against Eye and Torn Awake. The editor of two anthologies of Mexican poetry, Gander also translates: No Shelter: Poems by Pura Lopez Colome and Firefly Under the Tongue: Poems by Coral Bracho are most recent. With Kent Johnson, he has translated two books by Bolivian wunderkind Jaime Saenz. In a collection of essays, A Faithful Existence, Gander explores evolution, literary hoaxes, snapping turtles, and border crossings. He is a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim, Howard, and Whiting Foundations, among others.

Renee Soto is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Roger Williams University. Her poetry has been published in the Chattahoochee Review, Cimarron Review, Crab Orchard Review, Greensboro Review, and Indiana Review. Soto is founding editor the journal roger, an art & literary magazine. She has worked as managing editor of the Southern Poetry Review and as poetry editor for The Greensboro Review. Her poem, “El Mas Joven” received an AWP Intro Journals Award in 2000, and her poem, “Birthday Card, Long after the Breakup” received an Academy of American Poets University Prize. Each spring she coordinates a series of events including emerging poets, established poets, and poets who work in translation to complement the April Is National Poetry Month celebration at RWU. She has an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a BA from Mary Washington College.

Poetry Workshop for Adults with Heather Sullivan
Saturday, April 4, 12:30-2:00 pm, Barnard Room, 3rd floor

Share Your Voice: An Introduction to the Craft of Poetry -- Follow your muse and join poet Heather Sullivan for this interactive workshop. If you’ve ever wanted to explore poetry, understand poetry, or craft your own, this is the workshop for you. We’ll read contemporary poems, use creative prompts, and put pen to paper. You’ll have an opportunity to share your work, and you’ll leave not only inspired, but with fresh ideas and a work in progress. Please bring a poem of your own or a favorite poem to share.

About the Poet
Heather Sullivan received her B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Rhode Island. Her awards include semifinalist: New Millennium Writing Competition; first place: Nancy Potter Short Story Contest; first place/memoir category: Writer’s Digest’s 1999 Writing Competition; and honorable mention: The Academy of American Poets Prize at URI. She is published on the Block Island Poetry Project’s website, Echoes of the Heart: Poetry for Peace from 9/11, Balancing the Tides: A Newport Journal, The Writers’ Circle’s 2008 Anthology, The Newport Roundtable’s Walls and Bridges Anthology, The Providence Journal, and She Shines Magazine. Recently, Sullivan’s work was aired on RI NPR’s This I Believe series. She has taught writing at URI, Salve Regina University, and Brown University. In April 2007, she served as a panel judge for Barnes and Noble’s state-wide Maya Angelou High School Poetry Contest. In July 2007, she was appointed Assistant Creative Director of The RI Writers’ Circle. Heather joined the Circle’s Power to the Poets, a community outreach group that brings poetry to the underserved. She is currently administering a National Poetry Competition.

Children’s author/illustrator Nina Crews
Saturday, April 4, 2:30 – 4:00 pm, Auditorium, 3rd floor

Artist & author Nina Crews is known for her beautiful and clever photo collages of children playing in city neighborhoods. Her books include One Hot Summer Day, Snowball, The Neighborhood Mother Goose and most recently, Below. Prior to entering the field of children’s literature, Nina worked in animation production for 10 years. Her talk will be aimed at librarians, teachers, parents and children's literature enthusiasts. Her talk will be followed by a book sale and signing.

An Afternoon of Poetry
Sunday, April 5, beginning at 1:30 pm, Barnard Room, 3rd floor
Featuring Special Guest Poet Martha Collins and the Rhode Island Writers’ Circle
1:30 pm -- Book Sale & Signing with Martha Collins
2:00 pm -- Poetry Reading by Martha Collins
3:00 pm -- Winners of the The Writers’ Circle National Poetry Competition presented and winning poems will be read!

Open Mic Public Reading, hosted by The Writers’ Circle’s Power to the Poets
This Open Mic will be hosted by The Writers’ Circle’s Power to the Poets. Sign up for reading at the door. Power to the Poets, a free outreach program, has been touring the state since September 2008. Teams of poets travel with RI Poet Laureate Lisa Starr to hospitals, schools, nursing homes, prisons and homeless shelters. The Writer’s Circle National Poetry Competition winners will share their winning poems and poets from the community can sign up for a time to read one or two original poems.

About the Poet
Martha Collins founded the Creative Writing Program at UMass-Boston, and for ten years was Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College. She is currently editor-at-large for FIELD magazine and one of the editors of the Oberlin College Press. Blue Front, her book-length poem based on a lynching her father witnessed when he was five years old, won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and was chosen as one of “25 Books to Remember from 2006” by the New York Public Library. A selection of poems from Blue Front also won the Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize in 2005. Collins’ chapbook Sheer (Barnwood, 2008) is her most recent publication. In addition, she has published four collections of poems, two books of co-translations from the Vietnamese, and an earlier chapbook of poems, as well as individual poems in journals such as the Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. Her other awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Bunting Institute, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation, as well as three Pushcart Prizes, the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, and a Lannan residency grant.

About the Writer’s Circle
The Writer’s Circle was founded in 1993 as a nonprofit, charitable center for emerging and professional writers. The Circle provides workshops in fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, playwriting, poetry, screen writing, and independent publishing. Competitive workshops, visiting authors, and public events take place in Providence and Warwick. Workshops are designed to help writers hone their craft for publication in our anthology and also to showcase their work on stage. Writers are invited based on their level of experience, writing skills, and motivation.

Poets of Providence: Reach Out
Monday, April 6: 6:00-7:30 pm, Barnard Room, 3rd floor

A reading and talk featuring professional poets Kate Schapira & Tina Cane, along with their remarkable students. Kate Schapira and Tina Cane will read a selection of their own poetry and discuss their experiences working with young poets in local libraries and schools. Youth poets from Read and Rap at Smith Hill will also share poems from their recent anthology. This program is geared toward mentor poets looking for ways to reach out to the Providence community as well as to families and young writers looking for new opportunities to celebrate poetry.

About the Poets
Kate Schapira writes poems, makes books, teaches at Brown and URI, is a writer-in-the-schools at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School, and organizes the Publicly Complex Reading Series. She’s the author of four chapbooks (mini-books) published by other people: The Love of Freak Millways and Tango Wax (Cy Gist Press), The Painting (Rope-A-Dope Press), Case Fbdy. (Rope-A-Dope Press) and Phoenix Memory (horse less press). She lives in Providence.

Tina Cane was born and raised in New York City. She completed her Masters degree in French Literature at the University of Paris X-Nanterre and has taught French, English and Creative Writing. Her poems can be found in journals including Salt Hill, Hanging Loose, Barrow Street, and Spinning Jenny. Prose poems in French appear in the anthology Laisse de Mer (Francoforum, 1999). Tina’s book-length poem, Law of Fives, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series first book award and, most recently, for Fence’s Alberta prize.

Latino Poetry Reading & Reception (in Spanish)
Thursday, April 9: 6:00-7:30 pm, Barnard Room, 3rd floor
6:00 pm: Reception with Latino food and live acoustic music
6:30 pm: Reading by local poets writing in Spanish