In my new role as 2nd vice president of the Ohio Poetry Association, I would like to invite you to join us virtually on Saturday 11 January at 1 p.m. for a fantastic workshop with Yalie Saweda Kamara.
OPA Workshop featuring Yalie Saweda Kamara
For
our first poetry workshop of 2025, we are thrilled to welcome the
current Poet Laureate of the City of Cincinnati,
Yalie Saweda Kamara.
Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator, and researcher
originally from Oakland, California, and the 2022–2024 Cincinnati and
Mercantile Library Poet Laureate. Invited for a third year of poet
laureate service, her tenure will conclude in 2025. She is an assistant
professor of English at Xavier University, where she specializes in
creative writing and global and diasporic literature. Winner of the
2022–2023 Jake Adam York Prize, Kamara’s debut full-length poetry
collection is
Besaydoo (Milkweed Editions, 2024).
About the Workshop: “i am running into a new year”
In
this workshop, whose title is based on the famed Lucille Clifton poem,
poets will reflect on the gifts, struggles, and revelation of 2024 and
engage in creative activity that considers world making in 2025. Through
a multimedia exploration of surrender, embrace, confession, and
celebration, we will endeavor to investigate the following query: How do
the vestiges and blossoms from the previous year inform our
understanding of and proximity
to "possibility" in the newest year?
This
hybrid workshop will take place following the 10 a.m. OPA quarterly business
meeting at the
Mercantile Library in Cincinnati and also via Zoom.
To attend, please register at www.ohiopoetryassn.org/events.
To learn more about Yalie Saweda Kamara, visit her website at www.yaylala.com.
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