Athens, Ga. – A week of poetry reading and discussion of the poetic craft featuring four top Georgia poets will be hosted by University of Georgia College of Education professor Misha Cahnmann-Taylor July 9-13 at The Globe in downtown Athens.
The series, titled “Seat in the Shade: A Summer Poetry Reading Series,” will feature poets Ida Stewart, Ginger Murchison, Ayodele Heath and Alice Friman. The finale on July 13, titled “Poetry by and for Educators: Readings from the Collective,” will feature UGA educators and students. The readings will get underway each evening at 7.
Cahnmann-Taylor, an associate professor in the department of language and literacy education and founder of Poetry by and for Educators, developed the summer poetry reading series in conjunction with her Advanced Poetry for Educators graduate class.
The following is a brief description of each featured poet:
Ida Stewart-July 9
A native of West Virginia, Stewart holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Ohio State University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing at UGA. She is co-editor of “Unsplendid” and has served as an editorial assistant at The Georgia Review. Stewart’s first book, Gloss, won the 2011 Perugia Press Prize.
Ginger Murchison-July 10
Ginger Murchison, together with Thomas Lux, founded Georgia Institute of Technology’s Poetry @ Tech, in which she served as associate director for five years. She has been one of Georgia Tech’s McEver Visiting Chairs in Poetry since 2009. A three-time Pushcart nominee, she is a graduate of Warren Wilson’s M.F.A. Program for Writers and editor of the Cortland Review. Her first collection of poems, Out Here, was published by Jeanne Duval Editions in 2008.
Ayodele Heath-July 11
Born in Atlanta, Heath is a graduate of the M.F.A. program at New England College. Heath’s honors include a 2009 Dorothy Rosenberg Prize and a McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech. He has been awarded fellowships from the Cave Canem, Summer Poetry at Idyllwild, the Caversham Centre for Writers and Artists in South Africa, and received a grant in Literary Arts from the Atlanta Bureau for Cultural Affairs. His debut poetry collection Otherness is available from Brick Road Poetry Press.
Alice Friman-July 12
Friman has received fellowships from the Indiana Arts Commission, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo and the Bernheim Foundation. Her prizes include a 2012 Pushcart Prize, the 2001 James Boatwright Prize from Shenandoah, along with three prizes from the Poetry Society of America. Anthologized widely and published in 13 countries, she was professor of English and creative writing at the University of Indianapolis from 1973-1993 and is now Poet-in-Residence at Georgia College and State University. Friman’s fifth book of poetry is Vinculum, published by the LSU Press. Her previous books include The Book of the Rotten Daughter and Inverted Fire, published by BkMk Press, and Zoo, published by the Arkansas Press.
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