There’s something poetic in the air these days—or rather, on the air. The North Carolina Poetry Society has launched two new audio programs to celebrate their 90th anniversary!
January 14 marked their first on-air appearance on WHUP 104.7. Hosted by Bob Burtman, this new show will feature a different poet every four weeks. The launch featured a reading by NCPS VP of Programming Lynda Rush Myers. She and NCPS President Celestine Davis also talked up the year-long anniversary celebration. The show airs live at 8:00 am.
Celestine also will host the new livestream “Poets & Poetry Matters.” Starting in February, this web series will feature “monthly interviews and readings with poets whose body of work answers the questions, can poetry matter or do poets matter, with a resounding, ‘Yes!'” Keep an eye on the NCPS Facebook page, and on YouTube come February, for subscription links and info for how to watch.
Celestine Davis is a Teaching Instructor at East Carolina University. The NCWN Regional Rep for the Down East region, she is an avid volunteer community arts promoter who facilitates workshops, readings, and other outlets for poets and other writers. She is a co-founder and the festival director of the regional film festival, Down East Flick Fest. She is the current president of NCPS.
With more than 375 members from North Carolina and beyond, the Poetry Society holds regular meetings four times a year in Southern Pines at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, or online when necessary. In addition, NCPS sponsors annual contests for adults and students, which offer cash prizes and award certificates; the annual Poet Laureate Award, judged by the state’s poet laureate; the annual Brockman-Campbell Book Award, recognizing the best book published by a North Carolina poet; and the annual Lena M. Shull Book Award, selecting for publication the best full-length unpublished poetry manuscript by a poet living in North Carolina, where the wining manuscript is published by St. Andrews University Press, and the winning poet leads a workshop and gives a reading at Poetry Day Hickory in April. In 2003, the NCPS Board of Trustees approved the establishment of the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series, where three distinguished North Carolina poets are selected annually to mentor student poets in the eastern, central, and western regions of the state. Learn more at www.ncpoetrysociety.org.