Poetry, Inspiration and Empowerment: Needed Lifelines Now More Than Ever
Thursday, May 7, 2020
1:00 pm-2:00pm
Optional Reflection at 2:15pm
Free

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The Mountain West Arts Conference is designed to help individuals and organizations in the cultural community access essential resources and create community connections throughout Utah. It is also part of a long-term effort to sustain the creative industry by providing opportunities, education, tools, information and resources that serve all contributors to the arts.

2020 Keynote Speaker: Glenis Redmond – Poet, Teaching Artist, and Imagination Activist

2020 KEYNOTE - GLENIS REDMOND - POET, TEACHING ARTIST, IMAGINATION ACTIVIST
POETRY, INSPIRATION AND EMPOWERMENT:  NEEDED LIFELINES NOW MORE THAN EVER
Glenis Redmond travels nationally and internationally reading and teaching poetry so much that she has earned the title, Road Warrior Poet. She has recently been awarded the highest award for the Arts in the state of South Carolina, The Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award.  Also, she will receive the “Charlie Award,” given in memory of Charles Price granted by the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival in the Fall of  2020

In 2014-19, Glenis has served as the Mentor Poet for the National Student Poet’s Program to prepare students to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House. The students now read at the Library of Congress. Author and T&W Board member Tayari Jones selected Glenis Redmond’s essay, “Poetry as a Mirror,” as the runner-up for the 2018 Bechtel Prize. Teachers & Writers Collaborative awards the annual Bechtel Prize to the author of an essay that explores themes related to creative writing, arts education, and/or the imagination.

Glenis is a Cave Canem Fellow, a North Carolina Literary Fellowship Recipient, and a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist. She also helped create the first Writer-in-Residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina.  Redmond’s “Dreams Speak: My Father’s Words” was chosen for third place for the North Carolina Literary Review’s James Applewhite Prize and “Sketch,” “Every One of My Names,” and “House: Another Kind of Field will be published in NCLR in 2019. These poems are about —Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor of the underground railroad; Harriet Jacobs, who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist, and the author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; and Harriet E. Wilson, who was held as an indentured servant in the North and went on to become an important novelist, businesswoman, and religious speaker.

Glenis believes that poetry is a healer, and she can be found in the trenches across the world applying pressure to those in need, one poem at a time.

Visit Glenis at www.glenisredmond.com

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