This event is free and open to the public. Those interested in attending are asked to RSVP.
Ohio Poet Laureate Gunter-Seymour reading and talk-back
Join the Ohio State University at Newark on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 6 p.m. in Hopewell Hall 59 as we host Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour.
Gunter-Seymour is Ohio’s third Poet Laureate and has held the position since 2020. The Ohio Poet Laureate is tasked with “[fostering] the art of poetry, [encouraging] literacy and learning, [addressing] central issues relating to the humanities and heritage, and [encouraging] the reading and writing of poetry across the state,” per the Ohio Arts Council. Above all, the Ohio Poet Laureate is meant to engage with and enrich the lives of Ohioans through sharing their poetry.
Gunter-Seymor hails from Albany in Athens County. Her work focuses on the complexities of contemporary Appalachian female culture. Her poetry publications include A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen, which won the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award; Alone in the House of My Heart, which was a National Indie Book Awards finalist; and Dirt Songs, her most recent collection, which made the 2024 Person of the Year (POTY) Book Award longlist.
Other accomplishments include being the curator and editor of I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, founder and executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project (WOAP), and editor of several volumes of WOAP’s Women Speak anthology series. Gunter-Seymour is also a retired instructor at her alma mater, Ohio University, where she taught at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and received her BFA in Graphic Design and MA in Commercial Photography. She was also an artist in residence at the Wexner Center for the Arts; a 2021-22 Pillar of Prosperity Fellow for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio; the Athens Poet Laureate from 2018-20; and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship recipient in 2021.
Students, faculty, staff and the community are welcome and encouraged to attend Gunter-Seymour’s poetry reading and subsequent talk-back. For further questions, contact Terri Hessler, PhD, associate professor of special education at 740-364-9544 or hessler.16@osu.edu.