Community Arts Access Project Grant

As a result of this project, attendees from the Brainerd Lakes Region will have their hearts illuminated and transformed by a truly brilliant and charismatic poet. The main goal: to create empathy and understanding for anyone who grew up in families that were fraught with conflict, and who struggled with vital issues of identity. While it is not necessarily a theme, Verse Like Water has a deep interest in the human experience of exile, and immigration remains one of the central issues of our time. Across the first decade of the series, nearly half the poets have been from somewhere other than America. Every time VLW hosts a poetry reading, we create a space where different voices can be heard, and so far, the music of poetry has come from voices who are black, queer, Latino/Chicano, Cuban-American, Palestinian, Armenian, Iranian, Syrian, Jamaican, Nigerian, Native American, Indian, Chinese, Northern Ireland, Belarusian, and it is definitely again time for a voice that is black. Poetry is a way to make human connections. Since at least 200 high school students will leave with copies of Pardlo's book Digest, the potential effects of this historic event will continue long after the reading, since obviously those poetry books will land in 200 homes in the Brainerd Lakes Region. We always use small survey cards, but this time out the survey cards will be enlarged, and rewritten with new questions. The following questions will be in the cards this fall, which will be distributed and collected by CLC Honors students. Numerical responses have their uses, but open-ended questions call on audience members to do some reflecting and thinking, and honestly they are the most interesting since candid thoughts can transcend data. 1. How has this event changed the way you think about poetry, and the arts in general? 2. Can you describe your personal response to the performance and humanity of poet Gregory Pardlo? 3. Has this poetry reading nudged you to think about yourself as a possible maker of art of any kind? 4. Would you recommend Verse Like Water literary events to friends' What might you tell them about this reading series, and the experience you had today? 5. What made you laugh or smile or tear up today in the presence of Gregory Pardlo? What is nice about planning to have high schools come, is that they can do longer evaluations in class. Because the schools involved are College in the School assignments for project manager Jeff Johnson, he can prepare the students beforehand, in person or on Zoom, and personally interact with the students with classroom visits.