Burning with the Word
A Celebration of Contemporary Black Poetry
brought to Portsmouth by the Seacost African American Cultural Center and PPLP
Seacoast African American
Cultural Center
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Open and Free to the Public
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: John-Michael.Albert@Comcast.
02:30-04:30 pm Afternoon Poetry Workshop:
The Unlettered Muse: Poetry and the Creative Mind
(led by Regie O’Hare Gibson, see bio below)
This will be a lively writing workshop for those
of you who want to write without all the rules you never wanted to learn anyway.
By using both surrealist and structured techniques, like “embedded form,”
“ekphrasis” and poetic koans, we will peep under the left and right sides of the
brain and see what peeps back. And you might even work on your performance
skills to boot!
07:00 pm – 09:00 pm Evening Concert Presentation
Kemi Alabi
Kemi Alabi is president
of Boston University's spoken word collective and a humble newcomer to the
Boston poetry scene. Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she has featured in
venues throughout New England and teaches creative writing workshops to local
teens. She served as a featured poet at the 2011 National Poetry Slam
Championships in Boston, and she performs on the streets of Boston with Guerilla
Poetry, “unexpected poetry at unexpected times.” Kemi's most recent chapbook is Letters
to the Ungod (September 2011). "Kemi
Alabi is one of the most intelligent and original young poets in the Boston
scene. She can do things to you with words that most people couldn't do without
a battle axe." Sam Teitel, Survive,
Survive, Survive (Bicycle Comics,
2011).
Royaline Edwards
Royaline Edwards is a
retired educator, author and playwright with a BS from Jarvis Christian College,
and a Masters of Education from the University of New England. Upon retirement
she completed several Artist in
Residence Programs at local area
schools, producing and staging her original play, “Listen to the Drums…A Tribute
to Harriet Tubman.” Her first published book is a children’s book entitled A
Ribbon for Sammi. She is currently working on her second book, a fictional
work for teens and young adults. Royaline was recipient of the Eliot Baha’i
community’s Vision of Race Unity Award
in 2005, and received a Community
Service Awardfrom the Seacoast Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition in 2009.
Mckendy Fils-Aimé
Haitian-American slam
poet Mckendy Fils-Aimé is a four-time competitor at the National Poetry Slam,
representing New Hampshire's Slam Free or Die in 2008 and 2010, Worcester, MA
Poets Asylum in 2009, and the Boston Cantab Poetry Slam in 2011. Mckendy runs a
weekly workshop where he emphasizes that first and foremost, that the key to
effective poetry performance is good writing. His works can be found in literary
journals such as Amoskeag, Radius, Smashcake, and Borderline.
Ernest “Scripture” Gibson III
Ernest "Scripture"
Gibson III, is a National Slam Poet, Doctoral Candidate at the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst, and was Thurgood Marshall Fellow at Dartmouth College. He
is a national slam poet who has breathed on stages all across the nation. He is
featured on a CD anthology entitled, Live
from Kijiji’s: The Open Mic Sessions and
has been featured at numerous venues. He was a two-time member of Milwaukee’s
National Slam Team (2003, 2004), a member of the 2011 Lizard Lounge Slam Team
(2011) and has won several individual slam titles, from Milwaukee to Nashville,
from Madison to Hartford, from Atlanta to Disney World. He is currently working
on his first solo project, a Book/CD collective entitled, Extrospection:
A Conversation with the Muses.
Reggie O’Hare Gibson (afternoon workshop facilitator and evening feature)
Former National Poetry
Slam Champion Regie Gibson received his MFA from New England College. He has
lectured and performed widely in the U.S., Cuba and Europe, most recently at
Teatro Binario 7 in Milan, Italy. In 2008, as a representative of the U.S.,
Regie competed for and received the Absolute
Poetry Award in Monfalcone,
Italy. Himself and his work appear in Love
Jones, a feature-film based on events in his life. He has been featured on
HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, various
NPR programs, and nominated for a Boston Emmy.
He’s a recipient of both the Walker Scholarship for poetry from the Provincetown
Fine Arts Work Center and a YMCA Writer’s fellowship. He’s been published in Poetry
Magazine, Harvard’s Divinity
Magazine, The Iowa Review and The
Good Men Project among others.
His volume of poems, Storms
Beneath the Skin, received the Golden
Pen Award. In 2010 Regie received a Massachusetts
Cultural Council Award for Poetry and
the 2010-11 Lexington Education
Foundation Program Grant. He is presently completing a Major Artists
Residency at Berklee College of Music. "Regie, when you perform, you are
supersonic and in the stratosphere, where you can see that the Earth really is a
ball, moist, blue-green. Regie, you sing and chant for all of us. Nobody gets
left out." Kurt Vonnegut
Sponsors
Seacoast African American Cultural Center [http://saacc-nh.org/]
The mission of
the Seacoast African American
Cultural Center is to celebrate
the lives and achievements of black people with emphasis on the unique story of
African Americans in the Seacoast region, and to infuse all people, especially
young people, with knowledge of and appreciation for the history and culture we
all share.
Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program [http://pplp.org/]
The Portsmouth
Poet Laureate Program is
dedicated to building community through poetry by appointing and supporting an
outstanding local poet as Poet Laureate for the city, sponsoring events that
feature area poets and authors from outside the New Hampshire Seacoast, and
encouraging a love of poetry among people of all ages.
Organizers
John-Michael Albert, 8th Portsmouth (NH) Poet Laureate [John-Michel.Albert@Comcast.
Ayanna Gallant, M.Ed., Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction
with a focus on Arts Integration
Ayanna Gallant is a
music and poetry artistic leader for non-profit groups Arts
in Reach, Jazzmouth: The
Portsmouth Poetry and Jazz Festival, and With
Open Minds. She teaches poetry workshops for youth and adults in schools and
most recently, for the Seacoast
Writer’s Association and for
AIR’s Phenomenal Women Project.
Ayanna shares her love for the arts as a music teacher at the Deerfield
Community School in Deerfield, NH. She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the
University of New Hampshire in Music Education and a Master of Education Degree
in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Arts Integration. Ayanna credits
her students, colleagues and New England poetry family for teaching her about
the things that matter most, creating and learning. Ayanna was published in The
2008 Poets’ Guide to New Hampshire. She is the author of Room
Without a View (Sargent Press,
2007), How to Say Hello (Sargent
Press, 2008) and the recently released Screams,
Moans and Lullabies (Sargent
Press, 2012). Ms. Gallant has participated in two ofThe Wire’s
(Portsmouth NH) “RPM Challenges” an annual event challenging artists to create a
complete CD during the month of February; plays trombone with the Portsmouth
Symphony; and has shared the stage with Branford Marsalis, Clark Terry and US
Poet Laureate (2004-2006), Billy Collins.
“His word was in my heart as burning fire shut up in my bones.”—Jeremiah 20:9--