Poets That Pop!
My Soulful Aging Tour poetry partner Katherine and I were invited by the Artemis Journal editor Jeri Rogers to read our poetry at the Taubman Museum for Roanoke Arts Pop! yesterday.
Artemis is a locally-based art and literary journal that features artists and writers from the Blue Ridge and beyond, including fledging poets and artists, alongside Virginia Poet Laureates and prominent poets like Nikki Giovanni, a poet, activist and educator, who taught writing and literature at Virginia Tech from 1987 – 2022.
Elani Spencer, the 2024 Youth Poet Laureate of Roanoke was included in the program. It was a joy to meet her, some of her friends and one of her teachers at Hollins University, where she is a student. In the above video clip she is reading Wash Day Rebirth. You can read her poem “Perennials,” which she recently read at a meeting of the Roanoke City Council and received a standing ovation HERE.
Elani is the first Youth Poet Laureate of Roanoke, which reminded me of meeting and writing about Virginia’s first female Poet Laureate Ruby Alitzer Roberts in 1999. The art magazine my story appeared in, Expressions, no longer exists and is not archived online, but HERE is a blog post I wrote about the experience.
It was fun to put faces to names that I recognized from being published in past Artemis,’ including Anne Deaton, who read Spring Thoughts and other poems.
My Soulful Aging Tour collaborator Katherine Chantal read from one of her poetry books. She spoke of our next Soulful Aging series theme “Fairy Godmother’s Midnight and the Art of Archetypes,” which we will be sharing at this year’s Little River Poetry Festival, Floyd Yoga Jam and wherever else we might be invited to read.
The subject matter of the poems read was varied and rich. My Barbie poem got some laughs… Barbie was born in 1959 / She was the first adult I saw naked… After that shock / we learned the term / ‘anatomically correct’ / We looked down Ken’s pants / and saw that he wasn’t… More HERE.
Shout out to Jeri Rogers for her dedication and artful contributions as a professional photographer, activist and founder/editor of Artemis. Katherine and I read at this event last year but Jeri was not able to be there. We really appreciated, and everyone benefited, from her skillful hosting and poet introductions. The audience was larger this year too.
Read about our last year’s readings at Roanoke Arts Pop! @Taubman which gives more information on the event HERE. And HERE is a 2021 article I wrote about Jeri and Artemis for The Floyd Press.