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Speaking With Athens’ Poet Laureate: Kari Gunter-Seymour

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Kari Gunter-Seymour poses for a portrait at the Dairy Barn Arts Center on March 6, 2018. (Submitted)

Poetry came into Kari Gunter-Seymour’s life as a way to deal the enormous spiritual and emotional heft of having a son serving on military deployment, and some years and many publications later, she has been selected as the poet laureate for Athens, OH.

Gunter-Seymour has won numerous awards for her poetry and photography. Her chapbook “Serving” was a runner-up in the 2016 Yellow Chair Review Chapbook Contest and was chosen the winner of the 2016 Hocking Hills Poetry Festival, she has had several poems nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and last year she was chosen as the first place winner of the BlackberryPeach Spoken and Heard Competition. Her photography has appeared in “Storm Cellar Quarterly,” “The Sun Magazine,” “Vine Leaves Journal,” and “Appalachian Heritage Magazine.”    

WOUB’s Emily Votaw spoke with Gunter-Seymour about the nature of poetry in the modern age, what it means to be a poet laureate in 2018, and what her future hopes for poetry in the region are.