Eastern Shore Voices is proud to announce the fourth annual Salisbury Poetry Week! This project would not have been possible without major support provided by The Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore and MD Humanities. Other significant funding for the Youth Poet Laureate of Wicomico County was provided by the Salisbury Wicomico Arts Council, awarded by the Maryland State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Salisbury Poetry Week is a celebration of both the written and spoken word through a series of events open to all free of charge. Poetry is an integral part of our lives from song lyrics to commercials, from scripts to Shakespeare, from love letters to our children’s bedtime stories—poetry is truly at the center of our communicative lives. Not only a communication tool, but a craft that allows for empathy, poetry reaches into our center, highlighting that which is universal in all of us – humanity.
All Salisbury Poetry Week Events will take place on Zoom. For more information and to register for these events, please visit: https://easternshorewriters.org/
Christopher Salerno
Christopher Salerno, award-winning author, editor, poet, and professor at William Patterson University is our 2021 Poet-in-Residence. The author of five books of poetry, His forthcoming book, The Man Grave, won the Lexi Rudnitsky Award from Persea Books and will be published in 2021.
Thursday, April 8 7:30-9 PM: Join us for the Eastern Shore Voices annual poetry reading in collaboration with Thursdays with ESWA programming! This year, we will introduce you to the three finalists for Salisbury Youth Poet Laureate, enjoy readings from Eastern Shore poets Wendy Mitman Clarke, Tina Raye Dayton, Christopher T. George, Sharon K. Sheppard, & S. Scott Whitaker, as well as Salisbury Poet Laureate, Nancy Mitchell, and 2021 Salisbury Poet-in-Residence, Christopher Salerno!
Friday, April 9th 7:30 – 9:00 PM: Drop in on this Salisbury Poetry Week Open Mic Night which has become a slammin’ yearly event! Kick back and listen or share a poem from the Salisbury Poetry Week Zoom stage! Signups available in Zoom! Hosted by special guests, poets Amber Green & Sista Big!
Saturday, April 10
10:00-11:30 AM: The Eye, the World and the Self: Ecopoetry with JoAnn Balingit
To write poetry is to believe in renewal, invigoration and regeneration. Can poetry heal the world? If the answer is ‘yes,’ then hope lies in each poet’s insistence on cataloging the world, and sharing their details. In this generative poetry workshop, we’ll read & listen to poems by Arthur Sze, Natalie Diaz, Juliana Spahr and Danez Smith to help us consider the possibilities and necessity of ecopoetry. Then, in two writing periods, we’ll respond to prompts in the belief that “Sometimes in gazing afar,/ we locate ourselves.” Optional: bring a photograph of a childhood landscape, plant or being.
1:00-2:30 PM: Image, Metaphor, and Memory Poetry Workshop with Christopher Salerno
Join Salisbury Poet-in-Residence, author, editor, and William Patterson University Professor, Christopher Salerno for a Salisbury Poetry Week generative poetry workshop which will consider how imagery and metaphor help bring art to memory in developing moving and dynamic poems.
Sunday, April 1th 1:00-2:30 PM
Join the Eastern Shore Writers Association for a powerful discussion group! We study a well-known poet each month, exploring their work independently, then meet on Zoom for coffee, share our favorite poems by that poet, and discuss their work. Our April discussion focuses on the work of Salisbury Poet-in-Residence, Christopher Salerno, and will be facilitated by ESWA President, Tara A. Elliott. A excerpt from Chris’s latest book, The Man Grave, will be sent to all who register.
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