American Poetry Center
Encyclopedia
American Poetry Center was founded in 1983 to bring the Spoken Word
to a wide range of audiences. All programs were created, developed and implemented by Margaret Chew Barringer
, under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
. For its first decade, Jerome J. Shestack, Esq.
chaired the non-profit organization. In 2005, the organization changed its name to American INSIGHT
as it prepared to reach new audiences through the latest advances in all-digital historic archival research, video production techniques, and Internet-based delivery systems.
coordinated by the Academy of American Poets
in New York.
and Radio Free Europe
. Participating writers included E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee
, Joseph Brodsky
, Susan Sontag
, Galway Kinnell
, Allen Ginsberg
, Grace Paley
, Etheridge Knight
, Gerald Stern
, Czeslaw Milosz
, R.D. Laing, Amiri Baraka
, Robert Bly
, Dennis Brutus
, John Ciardi
, Marge Piercy
, Amy Clampitt
, Joyce Carol Oates
, Robert Haas
, Stanley Kunitz
, Cynthia Ozick
, Donald Hall
l and Yevgheny Yevtushenko.
. Over 100 poets, editors, scholars, and students from Russia and the United States participated in this first-ever exchange. Special receptions and readings were regularly held at the United States Embassies in Moscow
and St. Petersburg, the Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg and the National Press Club
in Washington, DC.
and Derek Walcott
and Canada’s Gaston Miron
.
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
to a wide range of audiences. All programs were created, developed and implemented by Margaret Chew Barringer
Margaret Chew Barringer
Margaret Chew Barringer founded the American Poetry Center in 1983 as a statewide nonprofit organization that brought storytelling and The Spoken Word to a wide range of audiences across Pennsylvania...
, under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts is an agency serving the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.Established in 1966, its mission is "to foster the excellence, diversity and vitality of the arts in Pennsylvania and to broaden the availability and appreciation of those arts throughout the state." Each year...
. For its first decade, Jerome J. Shestack, Esq.
Jerome J. Shestack
Jerome Joseph "Jerry" Shestack , was a Philadelphia lawyer and human rights advocate active in Democratic Party politics who served as president of the American Bar Association from 1997 to 1998...
chaired the non-profit organization. In 2005, the organization changed its name to American INSIGHT
American INSIGHT
American INSIGHT’s mission is to produce, promote, and distribute historical documentaries, and to broaden exposure to historical information through the use of emerging technologies...
as it prepared to reach new audiences through the latest advances in all-digital historic archival research, video production techniques, and Internet-based delivery systems.
Poetry Month
American Poetry Center developed, coordinated and promoted a month-long statewide annual celebration of the Literary Arts across Pennsylvania for ten years, featuring over 1,500 poets and writers at over 900 events in more than 100 cities; Poetry Month has now become National Poetry MonthNational Poetry Month
National Poetry Month is a celebration of poetry first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It is celebrated every April in the United States and in Canada as well...
coordinated by the Academy of American Poets
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...
in New York.
Symposia
American Poetry Center produced symposia in Philadelphia that attracted national and international media attention, including substantial coverage in all regional newspapers, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
. Participating writers included E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
, Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...
, Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
, Galway Kinnell
Galway Kinnell
Galway Kinnell is an American poet. He was Poet Laureate of Vermont from 1989 to 1993. An admitted follower of Walt Whitman, Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems are "St...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Grace Paley
Grace Paley
Grace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...
, Etheridge Knight
Etheridge Knight
Etheridge Knight was an African-American poet who became a notable poet in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after Etheridge was arrested for robbery in 1960...
, Gerald Stern
Gerald Stern
Gerald Stern is an American poet. His work became widely recognized after the 1977 publication of Lucky Life, which was that year's Lamont Poetry Selection, and of a series of essays on writing poetry in American Poetry Review. He has subsequently been given many prestigious awards for his...
, Czeslaw Milosz
Czeslaw Milosz
Czesław Miłosz was a Polish poet, prose writer and translator of Lithuanian origin and subsequent American citizenship. His World War II-era sequence The World is a collection of 20 "naive" poems. He defected to the West in 1951, and his nonfiction book The Captive Mind is a classic of...
, R.D. Laing, Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka , formerly known as LeRoi Jones, is an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism...
, Robert Bly
Robert Bly
Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...
, Dennis Brutus
Dennis Brutus
Dennis Vincent Brutus was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have apartheid South Africa banned from the Olympic Games.-Life and work:...
, John Ciardi
John Ciardi
John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist. While primarily known as a poet, he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry editor, and...
, Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.-Biography:...
, Amy Clampitt
Amy Clampitt
-Life:Amy Clampitt was born on June 15, 1920 of Quaker parents, and brought up in New Providence, Iowa. In the American Academy of Arts and Letters and at nearby Grinnell College she began a study of English literature that eventually led her to poetry. She graduated from Grinnell College, and from...
, Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
, Robert Haas
Robert Haas
Robert Haas may refer to:*Robert Haas , Austrian musicologist*Robert Haas , American calligrapher, typographer, photographer and book designer*Robert Haas , German clergyman and ecumenist...
, Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.-Biography:...
, Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. She is the niece of the Hebraist Abraham Regelson.-Background:Cynthia Shoshana Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children...
, Donald Hall
Donald Hall
Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...
l and Yevgheny Yevtushenko.
Soviet Writers Union Exchange
APC initiated a six-year cultural exchange program through a Reciprocal Exchange Agreement with the USSR Union of WritersUSSR Union of Writers
The USSR Union of Writers, or Union of Soviet Writers was a creative union of professional writers in the USSR. It was founded in 1932 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party after disbanding a number of other writers' organizations: RAPP, Proletkult, and VOAPP.The aim of...
. Over 100 poets, editors, scholars, and students from Russia and the United States participated in this first-ever exchange. Special receptions and readings were regularly held at the United States Embassies in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and St. Petersburg, the Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg and the National Press Club
National Press Club
The National Press Club is a professional organization and private social club for journalists. It is located in Washington, D.C. Its membership consists of journalists, former journalists, government information officers, and those considered to be regular news sources. It is well-known for its...
in Washington, DC.
The Spoken Word
APC sponsored dozens of poetry readings in Philadelphia featuring personal appearances by such notable figures as Russia's Andrei Voznesensky, Noble Laureates Czeslaw MiloszCzeslaw Milosz
Czesław Miłosz was a Polish poet, prose writer and translator of Lithuanian origin and subsequent American citizenship. His World War II-era sequence The World is a collection of 20 "naive" poems. He defected to the West in 1951, and his nonfiction book The Captive Mind is a classic of...
and Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...
and Canada’s Gaston Miron
Gaston Miron
Gaston Miron, was an important poet, writer, and editor of the Quebec post Quiet Revolution. His masterpiece, L'homme rapaillé has sold over 100 000 copies, in Quebec and overseas, ensuring Miron as one of the most widely read authors of...
.