West End Poets Weekend

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WEST END POETS WEEKEND ~ POETS BIOS
The 2008 West End Poets Weekend will consist of poetic activities, readings and performances for all ages throughout the Saturday, October 11. The event will begin at the Carrboro Century Hall (located within the Carrboro Century Center) and continue throughout the afternoon. For the evening readings and performances a shift in location will occur, with DSI Comedy Theater becoming the venue.

at Carrboro Century Center
11:00am- Noon	Children's Block
Founded in 1984, Poetry Alive! conducted its first show in a music hall called McDibb's in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Their presentations have taken them to a total audience of over 7,000,000 in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, Spain, South Korea, China, Turkey, the Bahamas, Venezuela and Peru. Each year Poetry Alive! now conducts approximately 2,200 performances, over 700 classroom follow-ups, and 100 teacher workshops for an estimated 600,000 students nationwide. They also conduct several specialized onsite In-Services from 1 to 5 days in length each year. Visit their web site for more information about Poetry Alive!

Noon - 12:30pm	Youth Block
Yujane Chen
Yujane Chen is a 5th grader at Seawell Elementary School. Besides reading, writing, and drawing, exploring the woods, laying in a field or just listening to a wild bird in the backyard are some of her favorite things to do. A lot of her poems are about animal and nature in the piedmont. Yujane is also fluent in mandarin, and able to read and write in Chinese. She is the recipient of the Carolina Parent's fifth annual Children's Book Writing Contest.
Elizabeth Yang
Eight-year-old Elizabeth Yang, currently a 4th grader at Seawell Elementary, is an avid reader, and has a love for math. She wrote "The Magicmathical Interchange" earlier this year while she was a 3rd grader at Carrboro Elementary in Ms. Lynn Arden's class. Elizabeth has many interests and intends to be a poet, a musician, a doctor, an artist, a writer, a pilot, an inventor, a marine scientist, an astronaut, and a president.
Flora Arnsberger	Is a second grader at Carrboro Elementary in Ms. Saville's class. She likes to write stories, poems,draw, math, arts and crafts, jump rope, play piano, and spend time out doors. When she grows up she wants to a microbiologist.
Rebecca Desper	High school senior Rebecca Desper has been writing poems, songs and short stories since she first learned how to write. But it's not only writing she's passionate about, horses and riding have taken the other part of her heart.
Alexandra Slydel	Is an eighth grader at McDougle Middle School. In addition to poetry, she likes to draw, listen to music and play her electric guitar. She is an active PETA member as well. Alexandra wants to be a wildlife biologist, an artist or a ROCK STAR!



12:30am - 2:00pm	Tarheel Poets Block
James Seay
James Seay's most recent book of poems is Open Field, Understory: New and Selected Poems. He is the recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Hannah Hodson Hannah Hodson is a junior English major from Greenville, North Carolina. She is also a North Carolina Teaching Fellow and plans to teach high school Language Arts in the eastern part of the state. Hannah is grateful and excited for the opportunity to share her writing at the West End Poetry Festival.


F. Ryan Dowdy F. Ryan Dowdy is a Junior at UNC Chapel Hill studying English, Music, and Creative writing. He is a James M. Johnston Scholar and an Honors student. Originally from Alabama, Ryan began writing poetry in High School and became editor of a monthly creative writing publication called "The Sheet". His works have been published in The Collegiate Scholar and he is currently working on recording an album with his band Lafcadio.







2:00pm - 4:00pm	NC Poets

Ricky Garni
Ricky Garni has lived in central North Carolina for twenty years and has been producing poems since 1979. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize on three occasions and featured in anthologies by Pif, Mitochondria, and Megaera. In the mid-90s, Ricky organized a series of local readings and operatic arias in the Triangle called 101 Secret Wing Dings. Slated for 2009 is The 1865 Project, in which the audience and speakers will be either younger than 18 or older than 65, and all invited to share parts of the world and history that they dearly love and wish to voice and preserve.Mr. Garni is presently in the process of completing Make It Wavy, a compilation accepted for publication by Oyster Boy Review's Off the Cuff Books. His long-term favorite enterprise is a collection of autobiographical comic multimedia poems entitled The Eternal Journals Of Crispy Flotilla.
www.toritllaexmachina.blogspot.com
Kim Holzer Kim Holzer is a former Pushcart Prize nominee and National Poetry Slam Champion whose 2007 chapbook, All of the Above, was published to benefit women in the Texas Jail Literacy Project. She has been the recipient of a North Carolina Emerging Artists Grant, and was one of five American women featured in London and Denmark during the American Amazons of the Dying Millennium Tour. The author of two critically-acclaimed one-person plays, she has performed and published her work throughout the United States and Europe. She teaches English at Carrboro High School, and is expecting her first child in the spring of 2009. http://www.lionessden.com

Donna Gulick Donna Spring Gulick has been writing and performing poetry since the age of ten, and been living and writing in Carrboro since 1979. In her work as intuitive, spiritual counselor, motivational speaker and workshop leader, she often leads and inspires others through poetry and her workshops, such as Write from Your Soul. Her CDs, books, and tapes have sold in the hundreds over the last 25 years. www.DonnaSpringGulick.com
Dave Manning
David Treadway Manning is a Pushcart nominee with poems in a number of journals and five chapbooks including The Ice-Carver, winner of the 2004 Longleaf Chapbook Competition, and most recently Detained by the Authorities (Pudding House, 2007). His full-length collection, The Flower Sermon, was published by Main Street Rag in 2007.
Torrie Valentine
Torrie Valentine is a poet who lives in Greensboro NC. She is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University and has been writing and traveling since she graduated in 2005. Torrie continues to write and read her work as an effort to inspire hope and social change in her community and afar.
Glenn Cassidy Glenn Cassidy is a Carrboro resident. He has worked as a public policy consultant and as a faculty member in city planning, public policy, and public administration at UNC, Georgia Tech, and the University of Illinois at Springfield. His poetry and short fiction often address public policy topics and have been published in literary journals. A poem about Bobby Sands was named runner-up in an elegy competition at Analecta. He writes the blog Angles and Rhymes. www.anglesandrhymes.blogspot.com

Jane Andrews Jane Andrews is a published poet, essayist, and fiction writer. With a degree in Creative Writing, a minor in Classical Greek, and experience in small group linguistics, she has a passion for language and its power to enrich and define experience. She teaches workshops in poetry, creative nonfiction, and journaling. www.wordshop.vpweb.com.
Marylin Hervieux
Marylin Hervieux is the recipient of an Artist Project Grant from the Orange County Arts Commission which enabled her to teach poetry workshops to various special needs groups in the community. She has been published in Kalliope, Tar River Poetry , the NC Arts Council's Poet Laureate "Poet of the Week" series, and the anthology, Kakalak - Anthology of Carolina Poets. She is a member of the North Carolina Poetry Society and the North Carolina Writers' Network.


4:00pm - 5:30pm	*Break*

at DSI Comedy Theatre
5:30pm - 6:00pm	Laureate Block

G. Neal McTighe	(Carrboro Laureate)
Neal McTighe has been writing poetry for over fifteen years. He received his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures at UNC-CH in 2007, with a dissertation on the sixteenth-century Italian philosopher and poet, Giordano Bruno. In addition to a few scholarly publications, Neal has contributed poems to the local online journal, _volutions Magazine, to The Carrboro Citizen's arts supplement, The Mill, and also the Carrboro Free Press. Neal is writing his first novel, a work of historical fiction set in seventeenth-century Naples. As Poet Laureate, he has written poems on Carrboro's history and has promoted poetry amongst our youth--inaugurating the town's very own Youth Poetry Contest. Neal was recently appointed to the Carrboro Arts Committee.
Mike Troy	(Hillsborough Laureate)
Mike Troy was named Hillsborough (N.C.) first poet laureate last spring. Troy grew up in Durham (NC) and lived in Chapel Hill for many years. Now, a Hillsborough resident, his poetry has been described as "pointed, yet deceptively simple with a soothing cadence, like the poems mothers read to their children". He credits the poetry of Vachel Lindsay, an itinerant poet from Springfield, Illinois, with helping him be brave enough to write his deepest thoughts using rhyming verse. Contrary to others perception if a poem rhymes- Troy believes that "our thirsty hearts" yearn from the comfort of rhyme. (Chapel Hill Magazine July/August 2007)

6:00pm - 8:00pm	Published Poets Block
Joanna Catherine Scott
The author of the novels The Road from Chapel Hill (a sequel Child of the South is due out in April 2009); Cassandra, Lost; The Lucky Gourd Shop; and Charlie, and the prizewinning poetry collections Breakfast at the Shangri-la, Fainting at the Uffizi, and Night Huntress. A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Duke University, she was born in England, raised in Australia, and now lives in Chapel Hill. www.joannacatherinescott.com
Maureen Sherbondy
Maureen Sherbondy grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey, and now resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and three sons. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including European Judaism, Calyx, Feminist Studies, 13th Moon, Cairn, Comstock Review, Crucible, The Roanoke Review and the Raleigh News & Observer. Three of Maureen's poems were finalists in the William Faulkner - William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. Other poems have won first place in: The Deane Ritch Lomax Poetry Prize (Charlotte Writers' Club), The Lyricist Statewide Poetry Contest, and the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award from Kent State University. Main Street Rag published her first chapbook, After the Fairy Tale, in 2007. Praying at Coffee Shops was published in February, 2008. Maureen also writes fiction.
Alice Osborn
Alice Osborn (www.aliceosborn.com) is a poet, essayist, creative writing instructor, and the author of Right Lane Ends (Catawba, 2006). A former English teacher at Raleigh Charter High School, she teaches creative writing to adults and middle school students through Duke University Continuing Studies, Raleigh Parks and Recreation, NC State's Young Writers' Workshop and at several other learning centers. She writes for The Pedestal Magazine, Innerchange Magazine, IncTechnology.com, edits novels and poetry, and her poetry has recently appeared in Main Street Rag, The Raleigh Quarterly and The 2008 Kakalak Poetry Anthology. She also leads a book club (the Wonderland Book Club) that meets once a month in Raleigh. Alice graduated from Virginia Tech with a Finance degree and earned her MA in English at NC State. Born in Washington, DC, she now lives in Raleigh, NC with her husband and two children.
David Need
David Need lives in Durham with his wife and four cats and teaches at Duke in the Department of Religion, the Slavic and Eurasian Studies Department and in International Comparative Studies. His poetry and criticism can be found in Fascicle, Talisman, Mipoesias, Effing Magazine, Minor Americans, and Hambone. Recent manuscripts include a long poem "St. John's Rose Slumber" and two works in progress, "Offshore St. Mark" and "Places I have Lived". http://odeo.com/episodes/1224001-Chance-is-Chance-by-David-Need http://odeo.com/episodes/1224046-David-Need-An-Angel-At-My-Throat http://fascicle.com/issue02/poems/need1.htm http://www.mipoesias.com/2006/need1.html

8:00pm - 9:00pm	Poet / Musician Block

Janet Bratter
Gilbert Neal
With a distinctive voice and talent to burn, Gilbert Neal continues to carve out a niche as the thinking fan's musician. Soulful grooves abound, and lyrics that defy categorization. Neal is angry, blissful, smart, and simple. Born in Buffalo, New York, and now living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Neal plays virtually every instrument, sings every line, arranges every nuance. After having started bands in various genres, his solo career has proven to be his most fruitful period, with two acclaimed CDs (Drink the Beast with Me and Our Deepest Apathy). It is only those who have not discovered his muse that remain unmoved. His time is now. And he's left-handed. http://www.gilbertneal.net
Lizh accompanied by Eric Kelly
Lizh is a first generation Dominican-American, with a strong passion for classic rock, the sultry sadness of the blues, the spirited expressionism of soul and funk and the deliberate awareness of spoken word. Her debut soul/rock album, "Let's break it down", brings together all the contrasting elements of the world around her into one soulful, powerful voice. On stage she teams up with drummer Eric Kelly, also a New York City native. His style strengthens the syncopated rim shots of R&B with the raw power of hard rock, and never fails to enrich the soulful ballads with the deliberate improvisation of the blues creating a new take on the fused soul/rock sound. Lizh and Eric met in Raleigh, North Carolina. They were both excited to find someone who carried with them a love for music, free from the restraints of genre and style. Together, they give her songs a life of their own, and incorporate new songs into the live show that are not featured on the record.


9:00pm - 10:00pm	Featured Poet
SlamCharlotte
Since its inseption, slamcharlotte has been a force in slam poetry. With back to back national poetry slam wins in 2007& 2008 the charlotte team has made history with being the first and only team from the south achieve such an honor. The team has shared the stage with such greats as sonya sanchez to outkast. A presence in the community, slamcharlotte works with youth groups, schools, foundations, and a bevy of organizations to push the art form of slam poetry higher. This is slamcharlotte.


10:00pm - 11:00pm	Poet / Musician Closing
Church da'Poet
Joseph "Church da Poet" No stranger to the stage. Poet, spoken word artist, writer, composer, organizer and playwright. Church is the founder of "Black Poetry Theatre", the Co-Producer of the play "Black Poetry. Church started his poetic path at the age of 14 to release emotions not easily shared. His thoughts are provoking, capturing, and informative. He writes to inspire and educate through "L.I.F.E" (Lyrics Injected For Education). The amazing way he crafts thoughts and evokes emotions, make him a sought after performing artist. Church opens the doors to his life, and his way of living… The Doors of the CHURCH are now open….. www.myspace.com/churchdapoet www.reverbnation.com/churchdapoet www.blackpoetrytheatre.com www.myspace.com/blackpoetrytheatre

If you would like to assist the Town of Carrboro in our effort to provide this Community Event- please use this paypal link or send your donation to:

Carrboro Recreation and Parks
Kim Andrews
100 North Greensboro Street
Carrboro, NC
27510

Checks should be made out to the Town of Carrboro and please note that this donation is to support our poetry endeavors.

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