White Cross School

From our friends at the Triad-based organization Poet.She:

Just in time for summer break, female spoken word and performance group, Poet.She has launched a Fight for Literacy campaign from May 2012 until the new academic school year.

The six-week reading and creative writing after school program has been proven to increase the literacy skills of students at Rankin, Peck, and Jones elementary schools as well as Greensboro Montessori, Guilford, and Kiser middle schools. Due to the high demand of the program needed in schools with little to no budget or resources, Poet.She needs $55,000 for staffing and workshop expenses to spread the program to all 90 elementary and middle schools.

“Students benefit from the program because they have the freedom to creatively express themselves as they strengthen skills needed in their upcoming grade level,” says Poet.She founder, Kelly Williams. “Schools will benefit with lower retention rates and an overall improvement of student academic success.”

The entire Greensboro community is urged to contribute towards increasing reading and writing skills among Guilford County students. Donation boxes are being set up at local and franchised businesses. There will also be Poet.She spoken word events and fundraisers held throughout the summer whose proceeds will go towards the goal.

To donate now or for more information on the campaign’s donation box locations, fundraiser, and upcoming events visit www.poetshe.org or email Poet.She at poet.she7@gmail.com.

Poet.She is a female spoken and literary group and non profit organization that strives to strengthen the female prescence in the literary and spoken word community. Founded in 2010 by Kelly Rae Williams and Paula Latham, Poet.She is for women who are passionate about poetry, writing, and literature, but most importantly, share the desire to spread it within the community. The organization consists of performers and writers of anything from poetry, prose, monologues, and fiction to random streams of consciousness. Along with poetry events, members of Poet.She are creative writing teachers and storytellers in the Guilford County schools system, currents teaching at over 4 elementary schools, the Greensboro Children’s Museum, and the Civil Rights Museum. The women are open for show booking, events planning, and public speaking. They have graced over 7 different radio shows, magazines, and newspapers.

From the Charlotte Observer:

Poet and Charlotte Observer writer Dannye Romine Powell is this year’s winner of Central Piedmont Community College’s Irene Blair Honeycutt Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts.

Jonathan K. Rice, editor of Charlotte’s Iodine Poetry Journal, won the Irene Blair Honecutt Legacy Award.

Powell was honored for her prize-winning poetry and her leadership and support of writing in Charlotte and North Carolina as a Charlotte Observer columnist.

Powell’s poems have appeared in such prestigious journals as Paris Review and Prairie Schooner. She’s the author of several poetry volumes, most recently A Necklace of Bees, and of the 1995 book Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers.

Rice’s award was given for his outstanding service in support of local and regional writers. Rice is an abstract artist and poet. His 12-year-old Iodine Poetry Journal is published twice a year.

Even closer to home, Dannye  won the 2011 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition for her poem “I Am the Girl,” while attendees of the 2012 Spring Conference were lucky enough to spend Saturday in Jonthan’s company as he ran the exhibitor booth for Main Street Rag. Both are NCWN members.

From our friends at In Public Service in Winston-Salem:

In Public Service, a nonprofit based in Winston-Salem, announces the debut of the new WORD UP! bus poetry poster, co-sponsored by Winston-Salem Delta Fine Arts. The posters are placed in WSTA buses among the advertisement posters and are seen by 10,000+ passengers per day.

The arrival of the new posters will be celebrated during the poetry awards portion of the “Silver Arts Exhibition: Fine Arts, Heritage Arts, Literature” Awards Ceremony (part of the Winston-Salem Recreation & Parks Department’s Senior Olympics Program):

Thursday, April 26, 2012
2:00 p.m.
Delta Arts Center
2611 New Walkertown Road
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
336-722-2625

Guests will include Mayor Allen Joines and WSTA Director Art Barnes, both of whom will recite a poem. They will be joined by the three Silver Arts program participants whose poetry has received first-, second-, and third-place distinctions.

The new bus poetry poster celebrates both National Poetry Month and North Carolina’s history of African-American writing and publishing. It features excerpts from George Moses Horton’s 1829 book of poetry and from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s 1857 Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects.

Today is an exciting day for book lovers all around the world. April 23 is the UNESCO International Day of the Book, and in the Catalan region of Spain, the day is celebrated by giving a book and a flower to a loved one.

It’s also World Book Night here in the United States (as well as in the UK and Ireland), which will see “tens of thousands” of people take to the streets, handing out free paperbacks to spread “the joy and love of reading.” For more on World Book Night, of which several of our members are taking part, click here.

According to their website, UNESCO chose April 23 because it is “symbolic date for world literature, as April 23, 1616 was the date of death of Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. April 23 is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.”

UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. By celebrating this day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

So give a book to that special someone today. And if you see somebody passing out paperbacks in a crowded public space, thank them for spreading the joy of books in your community.