Join us this Thursday, April 13, at 6:00 pm at the Akron Art Museum for the first public poetry reading by the participants of our Traveling Stanzas: Writing Across Borders project. The project, made possible by a major grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, has allowed teaching artists from the Wick Poetry Center to engage the refugee and immigrant populations in the Akron, Ohio community in a cross-cultural, intergenerational conversation through poetry and graphic design. Working with Project Learn, Urban Vision, and the International Institute of Akron’s (IIA) refugee and immigrant populations, as well as the Akron Public Schools (APS), Wick is offering weekly poetry workshops to encourage people of all ages to share their voice across the divisions of language, age, and culture.
The Akron Art Museum has generously supported the Traveling Stanzas: Writing Across Borders designs by installing two Traveling Stanza kiosks in The Bud and Susie Rogers Garden. These kiosks will join the family of Traveling Stanzas designs in northeast Ohio and around the world. Visitors to the garden will be able to view the design, read the poem, and press an audio button to hear the voice of the child or adult poet. Individuals will be able visit the kiosks digitally by accessing the Poetry Map at map.travelingstanzas.com
This reading is also the culminating event for Wick Poetry Center’s participation in the Poetry Coalition’s inaugural effort, Because We Come from Everything: Poetry & Migration. One of the founding members of the Poetry Coalition, the Wick Poetry Center joined with other organizations to work together to promote the values poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.