@ SCARRITT-BENNETT
The 4th Thursday of every month
7 - 8P
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Join fellow poetry enthusiasts for a monthly reading by a featured local poet. The environment is informal and conversation between the poet and audience is encouraged.
The Front Porch @ Scarritt-Bennett
1000 19th Ave. S. (corner of Grand and 19th)
More info: Call 615.340.7540 or email jsohl@scarrittbennett.org
2012 POET’S CORNER CALENDAR
UPCOMING FEATURED POETS
Check back for more for poet bios and updates
as they become available.
JAN. 26 - DIANA AULT MORNINGSTAR
FEB. 23 - TANYA JARRETT
MARCH 22 - BILL BROWN
APR. 26 - JAMIE COLLINS
MAY 24 - MALCOLM GLASS
JUNE 28 - BRAD BISIO
JULY 26 - JAMIE GIVENS
AUG. 23 - JEFF HARDIN
SEPT. 27 - KORY WELLS
OCT. 25 - EDITH COSTANZA
NOV. 15 - VICTORIA CLAUSI
DEC. 20 - JAMES FLOYD
Download 2012 flier
JAN. 26 - DIANA AULT MORNINGSTAR
View Diana's poetry here.
Diana Morningstar (Ault) is a longtime community organizer, activist and artist who has served on the boards & staff of many church and community non-profit organizations, locally, regionally, and nationally and has a passion for community-building across lines of race, class and culture.
She was born in a small town in Tennessee into the web of a close farm family with relationships to grandparents, great-grandparents, spent many years working with national and international grassroots women's groups filled with high-spirited sages, and has been mentored by many a wise woman. She regularly communes with the ancestors through dreams and visions and has been facilitating expressive arts circles and rites of passages for folks for 25 years.
After 8 years of leadership in the forms of InterPlay, she is currently designing MorningStar Community Arts, linking arts and social transformation, writing, performing and has produced dozens of community gatherings, house concerts, and sacred circles in her home- The PlayRoom. She's written poetry all along the journey and is currently publishing an extensive collection.
She is planning her fourth group trip to Morocco next summer for the World Sacred Music Festival in a combined family/cultural experience. She is mother to two gifted children, Eric and Sara Saliba and a devoted grandmother of Ben & Sam, 7, and Kinza, 4, who live next door and remind her daily what is REALLY important. 615-594-4410 www.MorningStarArts.net dianamorningstar@gmail.com
FEB. 23 - TANYA JARRETT
T. J. Jarrett is a writer and software developer in Nashville, Tennessee. Her recent work has been published or is forthcoming in African American Review, Boston Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, DIAGRAM, Ninth Letter, Linebreak, Rattle, Third Coast and others. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets 2011 and her collection The Moon Looks Down and Laughs was selected as a finalist for the 2010 Tampa Review Prize for poetry.
MARCH 22 - BILL BROWN
View Bill's poetry here.
Bill Brown is the author of three chapbooks, five collections of poetry and a textbook. His most recent titles are The News Inside (Iris Press 2010), Late Winter (Iris Press 2008) and Tatters (March Street Press 2007). In 1999 Brown wrote and co-produced the Instructional Television Series, Student Centered Learning, for Nashville Public Television. In 1995 The National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts awarded him The Distinguished Teacher in the Arts. He has been a Scholar in Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a two-time recipient of Fellowships in poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission. In 2011 he won The Writer of the Year Award from Tennessee Writers Alliance.
Brown holds a B.A. in history from Bethel College and graduate degrees in English from George Peabody College and The Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College. Brown retired as a part-time lecturer at Vanderbilt University in 2010. He lives with his wife, Suzanne, and a tribe of cats in the hills north of Nashville. Brown’s poems have been anthologized numerous times, and have appeared in journals such as Prairie Schooner, North American Review, The Literary Review, Westbranch, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Connecticut Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Smartish Pace.
JULY 26 - JAMIE GIVENS
Jamie Zoe Givens grew up on her family’s ranch next to the Snake River in Owyhee County, Idaho. She won her first prize in poetry at the age of seven for her recital of I Know an Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly.
After attending Gonzaga University and Boise State University, she traveled throughout the western United States. Jamie taught in California, and was awarded for her commitment and dedication to the excellence of students. Jamie left teaching to attend the New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In 2011, Jamie Zoe Givens helped create the “Gentle to All Ears” poetry reading for the International Book Festival; December 2011 featured poet for Poetry in the Brew. In 2010, her film, What’s It All About, played in Don Evan’s installation for “Where are They Now” at the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery; October 2010 guest poet for Line Breaks, a Literary Series. 2009 Jamie’s short story, Dusty’s Two-Story Bus appeared in Rambler Magazine. In 2008, she helped organize “The Last Great American Road Trip” which encouraged people to live life as art on a twenty-one day bus trip across the United States.
In 2004 she published Never Offer a Chair to a Dancing Girl and presented it at the Southern Festival of Books in 2005 and 2006. 2004-2005 Jamie served as a board member of Ruby Green Contemporary Gallery for Art, and in 2001, she had a mixed media poetry installation at Ruby Green. Her writing has garnered awards from the local to the international levels. She has performed her poetry on television and radio.
In the last decade, Jamie Zoe Givens has hosted several poetry readings in Nashville, Tennessee. Jamie also is a healing arts practitioner with a license in massage therapy. Currently, she is working on her next book, a memoir of a journey which leads to oneness. To see her latest writings, go to her blog at www.jamiezoegivens.blogspot.com.
www.jamiegivens.massageplanet.com
www.facebook.com/jamiezoegivens
www.facebook.com/neverofferachairtoadancinggirl
www.twitter.com/jamiezoegivens
www.linkedin/jamiezoegivens
SEPT. 27 - KORY WELLS WITH MUSIC BY KELSEY WELLS
Read Kory’s poetry here
Kory Wells is author of the poetry chapbook Heaven Was the Moon (March Street Press, 2009). She often performs her poetry with her daughter Kelsey, a roots musician, in an act that’s been called "bluegrass rap,” "hillbilly cool," and “moving, fun, spiritual and sassy.” Kory’s novel-in-progress was a William Faulkner competition finalist, and her “standout” nonfiction has been praised by Ladies’ Home Journal. She is a mentor with The Writer's Loft at Middle Tennessee State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Christian Science Monitor, Ruminate, Rock & Sling, New Southerner, Literary Mama, Southern Women’s Review, and other journals and anthologies.
Kelsey Wells came into the world with her feet still, her mouth shut, and her eyes wide open. Since then, she has discovered the joys of old-time fiddling, Appalachian dancing, and various other traditional arts. A Buchanan Fellow at Middle Tennessee State University, she is an alumna of the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts and a former Uncle Dave Macon Days Macon-Doubler Scholarship recipient. A member of the band Sweet Fancy Moses, she plays fiddle, banjo, cello, and more.
Learn more at korywells.com
OCT. 25 - EDITH COSTANZA
Edith Costanza,M.Ed makes her living as both a professional artist and actress. She teaches art therapy at The Campus for Human Development, an organization which serves the homeless, in Nashville, Tennessee. She has appeared in commercials, music videos, plays and films. Originally from Beaumont, Texas, she earned her Master’s Degree from Vanderbilt University in Human Resource Development.
Professionally, Edith has worked as a corporate trainer and consultant, specializing in Diversity training through the National Coalition Building Institute. She also did outplacement work with Drake, Beam and Morin, Inc., and Lee Hecht Harrison. In 2003, she made the shift to pursue art and performance full time.
NOV. 15 - VICTORIA CLAUSI
View Victoria's poetry here.
Victoria Clausi has published a chapbook of her poems, Boarding House. Her poems also have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Henry Holt’s Roots and Flowers, and in Ploughshares, for which she also has written reviews. Ms. Clausi is the Associate Director of the Graduate Writing Seminars of Bennington College where she received her MFA in poetry. She has taught writing, literature, and poetry at the undergraduate level and poetry in the July at Bennington Program.
DEC. 20 - JAMES FLOYD
James Floyd material can be found at www.vimeo.com/5520656.
