Richland Library Main
A Celebration of Words with Yomi Sode, Jennifer Bartell Boykin & Students
Friday, March 17, 2023 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Voices and verses join together in this international, intergenerational poetry reading featuring Black British writer, Yomi Sode, the City of Columbia Poet Laureate, Jennifer Bartell Boykin and students from Keenan High School, Spring Valley High School, Allen University and the University of South Carolina.
Prior to the celebration, participating students will take part in a week of workshops facilitated by Peter Kahn, a poet-educator from Ohio, and Yomi Sode, Black British writer recently selected as a finalist for the T.S. Eliot prize. Students will be selected to join Yomi Sode, Jennifer Bartell Boykin and Columbia poet, Alyssa Stewart, onstage for the final culminating event.
Audience members will be invited to participate in a Q & A with the poets and a book signing immediately following the event. A light reception will be provided at 6:15 pm in the Gallery at Richland Library Main.
"Yomi Ṣode is a Nigerian British writer. His debut collection ‘Manorism’ was published by Penguin in October 2022, alongside a stage adaptation at the Southbank Centre, is shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 and the T S Eliot Prize 2022. He was shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021, and received the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. Yomi's acclaimed one-man show COAT toured nationally to sold-out audiences, including at the Brighton Festival, Roundhouse Camden and the Battersea Arts Centre. In 2020 his libretto Remnants, written in collaboration with award-winning composer James B. Wilson and performed with Chineke! Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3.
In 2021, his play, and breathe… premiered at the Almeida Theatre to rave reviews. Yomi is a Complete Works alumnus and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the founder of BoxedIn, First Five, The Daddy Diaries, and mentorship programme, 12 in 12."
"Jennifer Bartell Boykin is originally from Bluefield, an African American community in Johnsonville, South Carolina. For most of her career, she has been an educator, most recently as an English teacher at Spring Valley High School. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies and is currently pursuing a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of South Carolina. She has sponsored the Poetry Out Loud competition and W.O.R.D. (Write.Organize.Read.Dream), Spring Valley High School’s poetry club. She’s been a regular participant in work under the post of Dr. Ed Madden, served as a former board member for the Deckle Edge Literary Festival, and contributed to the work of The Jasper Project; including writing for Jasper Magazine, serving on its board, and writing for special projects such as The Supper Table and Marked by the Water."--from The Jasper Project
"A former Chicago social worker, Peter Kahn has been an English teacher since 1994 and a Spoken Word Educator since 2003 at Oak Park/River Forest High School. His students can be seen in Louder Than a Bomb and America to Me. A founding member of the London poetry collective Malika’s Kitchen, he co-founded the London Teenage Poetry Slam and, as a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths-University of London, created the Spoken Word Education Training Programme. He earned his MA in English Education from The Ohio State University, student taught at Columbus East High School and taught for the Young Scholars Program. Peter was a featured speaker at the National Council of Teachers of English’s annual convention and runner-up in the NCTE and Penguin Random House Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry. Along with Patricia Smith and Ravi Shankar, he edited The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks reviewed in The New York Times by Claudia Rankine. Along with Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, and former student Dan “Sully” Sullivan, he edited Respect the Mic: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School, deemed “Electric and Expansive” by Kirkus Reviews. Peter’s 2020 poetry collection, Little Kings has poems featured in The London Guardian and The Forward Book of Poetry."
"Alyssa Stewart is a Columbia-based poet/singer-songwriter who was born into a family of creatives and educators. She teaches private music lessons through Columbia Academy of the Arts. She is grateful for friends who challenge her and for opportunities to share."
This program is sponsored by South Carolina Humanities, a not-for-profit organization; inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.
This program is also sponsored by the generosity of Richland Library's Friends and Foundation.