Culture
Final Autumn Spoken & Heard Event Slated for Nov. 7
< < Back toThe Dairy Barn Arts Center is pleased to announce the lineup of poets for the last event in its fall poetry series “Spoken & Heard, Poetry of Departure and Relevance,” to be held November 7, 2019, at 6 p.m., upstairs in the AEP wing. The evening is curated by Athens Poet Laureate, Kari Gunter-Seymour. Featured will be Columbus, OH, poet Barbara Fant and Bluffton, OH, poet Jeff Gundy. Athens’ own Sean Kelbley will serve as opening poet.
Barbara Fant has represented Columbus, OH in 9 National Poetry Slam competitions and placed 8th out of 96 poets in the 2017 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She is a TEDx speaker and is featured in the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Columbus Makes Art Campaign, the 2017 Columbus Alive People to Watch issue, and 614 Magazine’s 2019 Interview issue. She is the author of four poetry collections: Paint, Inside Out (2010), two chapbooks RibCaged and Them Brilliant Suns (both in 2017),and Aligning Water and Bearing Stars (2019). She is also the co-author of two stage productions, Black Staccato (2015) and Inside the Riot (2016). She has been commissioned by over ten organizations and has received residencies in Idyllwild, California and Havana, Cuba. She holds a BA in Literature, a Masters in Theological Studies, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry. She works at The Columbus Foundation and teaches poetry at Transit Arts and in correctional institutions. Barbara believes in the transformative power of art and considers poetry her ministry.
Jeff Gundy’s eighth book of poems, Without a Plea, is just out from Bottom Dog Press. Earlier books include Abandoned Homeland (Bottom Dog Press, 2015) and Somewhere Near Defiance (Anhinga, 2014), for which he was named Ohio Poet of the Year. His most recent prose book is Songs from an Empty Cage: Poetry, Mystery, Anabaptism, and Peace (Cascadia, 2013). The recipient of multiple Ohio Arts Council grants and Bechtel, Yoder, and Menno Simons lectureships, he has published essays and poems in Georgia Review, The Sun, Kenyon Review, Image, Cincinnati Review, Forklift, Ohio, Christian Century, Brevity, Terrain, and many other journals. A 2008 Fulbright lecturer at the University of Salzburg, he teaches writing and literature at Bluffton University in Ohio.
Sean Kelbley works as an elementary school counselor. His first published poem, in 2017, was nominated for “Best of the Net” by The Rise Up Review. Since then, his work has appeared at Crab Creek Review, One, Rattle, and other fine places, and been recognized in contests at Midwest Review, Still: The Journal, and the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society.
Poetry events are free to the public and doors open at 5:30 p.m. There will be a cash bar.
For more information about the Spoken & Heard events please go to www.dairybarn.org or email Kari Gunter-Seymour at athenspoetlaureate@gmail.com.