Events
Workshop Leaders Mary Fox and Rosalie Sanara Petrouske
Saturday, April 13, 10:00 a.m. – 12 noon
Thursday, April 25, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Portland District Library, 334 Kent Street, Portland, MI 48875, 517- 647-2738
This two-session workshop is suitable for teens or adults. In the first session, we will explore some ways to draw from the ordinary moments of life to create poetry. Workshop participants should bring writing material (or a laptop) and be prepared to write during the two-hour session. During the first session, we hope to give you the start to two or three poems.
In session two, we will look at ways to edit, revise, improve your poems to polish them, and provide some general tips on presenting them in their best form. We will provide participants with some resources for publishing poems or presenting them to audiences.
With the group, and Corey Grummick, we will come up with a day or evening for a celebration of poetry to share with the community.
Mary Fox is author of Waiting for Rain and the upcoming Reading Lessons (Finishing Line Press. She was co-editor of Promptly Speaking, a Writing at the Ledges anthology. She, along with Alan Harris (Fall Ball and Hospice Bed Conversations, FPL), and Rosalie Sanara Petrouske (A Postcard From My Mother and What We Keep, FLP) established, the annual Lansing area Ritzenhein Emerging Poet Award with the Lansing Poetry Club and Finishing Line Press. Mary currently serves as the Lansing Poetry Club secretary and the Ritzenhein Coordinator.
There will be a Q. and A. after the performance, and books will be available for signing. Poet Anita Skeen will serve as moderator.
Benvenuto taught English and creative writing at Haslett Public Schools for 18 years. She is the author of two collections of poetry: A Grand River, and Poem Journey. Her next book of poems about the southwest will be published in the fall.
Aram Kabodian taught English at both middle and high school level for many years with a short stint teaching math. He is a teacher consultant with the Red Cedar Writing Project and leads Spartan Writing Camps for youth through MSU.
Rosalie Sanara Petrouske founded Writing at the Ledges in 2005, a local writing group. She has published poems and essays, her most recent: What We Keep, a chapbook; a poem in the MSU Press anthology; And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017.
Ruelaine Stokes teaches workshops in creative writing and the art of spoken word. She taught English as a Second Language for many years at Michigan State University and Lansing Community College. She currently serves as President of the Lansing Poetry Club. Her poems are featured in Four Against the Wall.
