Walking into April Poetry Day
Don’t miss Walking into April Poetry Day on Saturday, April 13, at Barton College in Wilson, NC. Held in The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center, the 2019 event features Sam Ragan’s biographer, Lewis Bowling, who will share details about Sam’s life and contribution to this state’s literary culture. Phillip Shabazz will be the morning’s featured poet, and the afternoon will give Deborah Doolittle, Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for Down East, a time to shine with her Series student poets. The program runs from 10:00 until 3:00. Everyone is welcome to bring books to sell and a poem to read during open microphone time. This event is co-sponsored by sponsored by Barton College, the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series.
To reserve a catered lunch, please contact Rebecca Godwin by April 10. Mail checks ($10.00 per lunch) made payable to Barton College to Rebecca Godwin, School of Humanities/English, Barton College, Box 5000, Wilson, NC 27893. Or contact Rebecca at rlgodwin@barton.edu or (252) 399-6364 to reserve a seat at the table. Contact Rebecca or Marty Silverthorne at marty.koda@yahoo.com for more details. We hope to see you at Barton when the azaleas are in bloom.
Lewis Bowling, Assistant Professor of Physical Education at North Carolina Central University and instructor of History of Duke Sports classes at Duke University, is the author of six books on Granville County history and three books on sports, including Wallace Wade: Championship Years at Alabama and Duke as well as Duke Basketball: A Pictorial History. He writes history columns for Oxford Public Ledger and Butner-Creedmoor News and has taught in Bangkok and Malaysia. Sam Ragan: North Carolina’s Literary Godfather, should be available from Carolina Academic Press by the time we meet. We look forward to learning more about Ragan, whose poetry collection A Walk into April names our poetry day.
Phillip Shabazz is the author of three poetry collections, Freestyle and Visitation, XYZoom, and Flames in the Fire. His novel-in-verse is titled When the Grass Was Blue and his forthcoming memoir, Holding Space. His poetry appears in the anthologies Home Is Where: African-American Poetry from the Carolinas and Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont as well as in journals such as The Louisville Review, Obsidian, and The American Voice. Shabazz has been Artist-in-Residence at the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture at Duke University and a visiting writer at Warren Wilson College, Appalachian State University, Elon University, Winthrop University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently, he tours as a poet-in-the-schools in North Carolina.
Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Deborah Doolittle teaches at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville. She is the author of No Crazy Notions, That Echo, and Floribunda. Her work has appeared in Bear Creek Haiku, California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Poets’ Espresso Review, and Blue Stem Online. She is mentoring student poets Christie Lambert of Clayton, Jennifer Raha Newhouse of Murfreesboro, Mary Jo Larkin of Greenville, and Joan Leotta of Carolina Shores. All will read in the afternoon.