Wayne County Reads takes poetic turn
By From staff reports
Published in News on December 13, 2015 3:05 AM
After 12 successful years, Wayne County Reads will take a poetic turn in 2016.
In years past, the organization has challenged the community to read such fiction and nonfiction subjects as race relations, pirates, the Holocaust, fantasy, the Latino experience, Afghanistan, Vietnam and self-sustaining farming.
The Wayne County Reads selection this coming year will be "Poetry 180," an anthology edited by former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins that features poems by noted modern poets.
The book is available to be checked out at the Wayne County Public Library or purchased at Books-a-Million. Teachers can access its 180 poems online and duplicate them for students.
"We are calling this year 'Passionate for Poetry,'" said organizer and poet Margaret Boothe Baddour. "All during April (National Poetry Month) we will sponsor activities, speakers, events and displays to heighten the community's awareness of poetry in our lives and of reading in general."
Poetry Month will kick off on April 5 with keynote speaker Dr. Anthony Abbott speaking on "The Poems I Want to Learn by Heart" at Wayne Community College's Moffatt Auditorium. An award-winning poet and novelist, Abbott is professor emeritus of drama and English at Davidson College.
As always, all Wayne County Reads events will be open to the public free of charge.
The following week, the Arts Council of Wayne County will host an event at the Art Center downtown called "Ridicule and Shame: the Art of Satire." University of Mount Olive professors of art, music and literature will present a multi-media show featuring an interaction of poetry with all of the arts. Joining artist in residence Larry Lean will be music director William Ford and writer in residence Lenard D. Moore.
On Monday, April 18, a panel of statewide literary leaders will discuss "Why Poetry?" in the Walnut Lecture Hall at WCC. Sponsored by the Wayne Community College Foundation, the panel will include David Potari, literary coordinator for the North Carolina Arts Council; Marsha Warren, executive director of the Paul Green Foundation; North Carolina Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson; and Richard Krawiec, editor of Jacar Press in Raleigh.
A popular lecturer, Dr. Elliot Engel of Raleigh, will speak on famous American poet Robert Frost at the University of Mount Olive's Southern Bank Auditorium on Tuesday, April 26. Also that week, Dr. Engel will bring Southern Wayne High School students a program on poet Edgar Allan Poe.
The month's activities will culminate on Sunday afternoon, May 1, with a "Passionate for Poetry" festival at Herman Park. Sponsored by the Goldsboro Writers Group as part of Sunday in the Park, the family event will present onstage performers Allan Wolf of the Dead Poets band, African drummer Ayinde Hurrey, blues singer Donald Thompson, dancers, a "mini poetry slam" and more. Poetry workshops will include a "Goose and Seuss" scavenger hunt, Banks Peacock with "Origami & Poetry," "Lyrics in the Trees and Music on the Breeze," art and poetry displays, costumed poets/poems and more.
Other Wayne County Reads plans for April include the Wayne County Players in "Poetry in the Schools" and Mary Susan Heath on "Teaching Poetry Through Readers Theater," David Weil on "First Lines of Poems," poet Joseph Bathanti at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base on "Veterans Writing War Experiences," and "Poetry & Art" projects by the library's Teen Advisory Council.
All during the month, local residents will be reading their favorite poems on Wayne County TV and on radio.
Check the Wayne County Public Library's website for calendar events.
Wayne County Reads is made possible by a cross-county committee including the Public Library and Friends of the Wayne County Public Library, the Arts Council of Wayne County, Wayne Community College and the WCC Education Foundation, the University of Mount Olive, the Friends of Steele Memorial Library, the Wayne County Public Schools, Wayne Country Day School, the Goldsboro Writers Group and more.
For more information, call the Wayne County Public Library at 919-735-1824.