UWP reading seminars funded by race, ethnicity grant
PLATTEVILLE - Grants from the University of Wisconsin System will fund two reading seminars on the University of Wisconsin-Platteville campus this spring that will explore the work of African-American poets.
One of the two groups, which will feature the work of poets Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni, still welcomes participants from the campus community, said its organizer, Tom Lo Guidice, director of the UWP Teaching Excellence Center.
The other reading seminar, organized by Russ Brickey, coordinator of the UWP Writing Center, will involve an already-formed group that will read and discuss two anthologies of African-American poets.
Lo Guidice received a grant for $400 and Brickey received a grant for $225 from the UW System Institute on Race and Ethnicity. The funds pay for the books that will be used during the seminars, which are to include a cross-section of faculty, staff and students. Lo Guidice said the Teaching Excellence Center has received a grant during each of the seven years the program has existed; this is Brickey's first grant.
Lo Guidice said his seminar, "Poetry in Motion: Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni on Daily Life," will focus on two African-American poets who speak about daily life experiences.
Hughes, who he called one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, died in 1967. Giovanni, who he described as one of the most widely read of American poets, is probably best known by the general public for her powerful public statements after the 2007 shootings on the Virginia Tech campus, where she is a professor.
The participants in Lo Guidice's group will not read the same books. They have been asked to select one work from each poet from a provided list.
Lo Guidice said Giovanni's writing is very youth-oriented and noted that one of her selected books is "Hip-Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat."
"She's the kind of person who would take on hip-hop and what it says to children and how poetry is part of the everyday life," he said.
The two books for Brickey's group include the work of at least a dozen poets. The books are "Six Poets of Racial Uplift" and "Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poets."
Brickey noted that several of the participants in his group have strong backgrounds in literature and will provide significant contributions to the discussions. He is writing his doctoral dissertation on American poetry.
Brickey said the books represent two different eras in the history of African-American literature.
"My main purpose is an attempt to teach myself and engage with other interested readers in the process of learning more about these periods and the writers they produced," he said. "A lot of these poets are going to be unfamiliar to a lot of people."
The grant requires each group to meet for a minimum of 12 hours. A moderator will lead the discussions. While the groups will go about it in slightly different ways, participants in each group are required to provide feedback to the Institute on Race and Ethnicity about their reading group experience.
Lo Guidice and Brickey both plan events in the community at the end of their seminars. Brickey said his group may conduct a discussion and a poetry reading as part of the UWP Creative Writing Festival this spring. Lo Guidice said his group probably will conduct a poetry reading either on campus or at a coffee shop in downtown Platteville.
For more information, contact Lo Guidice at (608) 342-1798 or loguidit@uwplatt.edu or Brickey at (608) 342-1615 or brickeyr@uwplatt.edu.
Contact: Russ Brickey, coordinator, UWP Writing Center, (608) 342-1615, brickeyr@uwplatt.edu, or Tom Lo Guidice, director, UWP Teaching Excellence Center, (608) 342-1798, loguidit@uwplatt.edu Written by: UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194, pr@uwplatt.edu
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