NWFSC Reads:
Poet: Taylor Mali - Photo by: Peter Dressel
Taylor Mali Reading April 17 at 7 p.m
Workshop April 18 at 10:30 a.m.
Series Events April 12 - 18
Northwest Florida State College is celebrating National Poetry Month with its annual literary event series, NWFSC Reads. This year's NWFSC Reads keynote event is April 17 featuring visiting poet Taylor Mali, renowned spoken-word artist and author of What Teachers Make (2012). Mali will read and discuss his work starting at 7:00 p.m. in the Sprint Theater at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center on the college's Niceville campus. A reception and unveiling of the college's literary journal, the Blackwater Review, will be held immediately prior to the poetry reading starting at 6:00 p.m. in the McIlroy Art Gallery.
Other events that are part of the NWFSC Reads series will be held April 12 to 18 (see below) and feature NWFSC professors and students. All NWFSC Reads events are free of charge and open to both students and the public. Each event will be held at the college's Niceville campus at 100 College Boulevard. Seating is limited.
Born in New York City in 1965 into a family some of whose members had lived there since the early 1600s, Taylor Mali is an unapologetic WASP, making him a rare entity in spoken word, which is often considered to be an art form influenced by the inner city and dominated either by poets of color or those otherwise imbued with the spirit of hip-hop.
Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance."
He is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop Teacher! Teacher! a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival.
Formerly president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist these days, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated several books on tape, including The Great Fire.
Visit www.taylormali.com.
NWFSC Reads Events
Thursday, April 12, 6:00 p.m. The Blackwater Review Reading in the McIlroy Gallery at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center. Dr. Vickie Hunt, NWFSC Professor of English, will host a reading, featuring student writers published in this year's Blackwater Review, NWFSC's annual literary and arts magazine.
Friday, April 13, 7:00 p.m. Poet and Professor Amy Riddell's Reading and Book Signing in the Art History Lecture Hall, Room J-328 of the Art Wing at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center. Come hear Amy Riddell as she reads from her first full-length collection of poetry, Bullets in the Jewelry Box. The book is a true-crime story, that of her Bluebeard-like father who is in prison for trying to murder his wife. From her attempts to understand her father's odd brutalities (and love) to her own hard-won transcendence later in life, Riddell's poems offer tacit touchstones to healing what is wounded in all of us.
Monday, April 16, 3:00 p.m. African American Student Association Poetry Slam in the Tyler Recital Hall of the Mattie Kelly Arts Center. Join Professor Patrice Williams, NWFSC Professor of English, and the college's African American Student Association (AASA) at this competitive spoken-word poetry event.
Tuesday, April 17, 6:00 p.m. Blackwater Review Unveiling in the McIlroy Gallery at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center. The college's prestigious literary and arts journal will be unveiled and available for purchase. Student contributors will be honored at the unveiling and reception which is held immediately prior to the 7:00 p.m. poetry reading by featured guest poet Taylor Mali.
Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 p.m. Taylor Mali Poetry Reading in the Sprint Theater at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center.
Wednesday, April 18, 10:30 a.m. Q & A on the Craft of Writing with Taylor Mali in the main lecture hall of the Robert E. Greene, Jr. Science Building on the Niceville campus. Meet the visiting poet Taylor Mali and hear him discuss the art and work of writing.
Poet: Taylor Mali - Photo by: Peter Dressel
For more information about NWFSC Reads, please contact Dr. Deidre Price, Professor of English, at priced@nwfsc.edu or (850) 863-6521.