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Kids Reading Across RI Poetry Reading

Kids Reading Across RI 2021 presents a celebration of Muhammad Ali and poetry in support of this year's KRARI selection Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson and Kwame Alexander. Join us for readings and discussion with Rhode Island Poet Laureate Tina Cane, Rhode Island Deputy Youth Poet Laureate Eugenie Rose Belony, April Brown, Len Cabral, and Jacqueline Woodson.

Please pre-register to receive the event link two days before the event. Registration will close two hours before the event. This event will be recorded and available for viewing Friday, May 14th on the KRARI LibGuide at https://olis-ri.libguides.com/krari/2021.

Contact Danielle Margarida or Kate Lentz for more information.

About the poets:

Born and raised in New York City, Tina Cane serves as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island where she is the founder and director
of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI. Her poems and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including The Literary Review,
Spinning Jenny, Tupelo Quarterly, Jubliat and The Common. She also co-produces, with Atticus Allen, the podcast, Poetry Dose. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought (Other Painters Press, 2008), Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, poems with art by Esther Solondz (Skillman Avenue Press, 2016), Once More With Feeling (Veliz Books, 2017) and Body of Work (Veliz Books, 2019.In 2016,
Tina received the Fellowship Merit Award in Poetry, from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She is also a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and the creator/curator of the distance reading series, Poetry is Bread.

Eugenie Rose is a 16 year old poet from Providence, Rhode island. She's been expressing her feelings and sharing her ideas through poetry for a little over six  years now. She currently attends Providence Career & Technical Academy where she studies Pre-Engineering. Although poetry is such a big part of her life, so is STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) equality amongst the Black and Brown communities as well being a female/femme in these fields.. As she grows older, she has found a true love for Astro and Quantum physics as well as Aerospace Engineering. She loves mixing incredible facts about the universe and history into her poetry. She is an outspoken youth of today who wants REAL change amongst the country and world that she lives in.

April Brown is an educator, ordained minister, poet, singer and actor living in Providence, RI.  She has performed in the United States, Japan, and Israel.  Ms. Brown holds a B.A. from The American University in Washington, DC and an Ed.M. from the University of Rhode Island.
She is the co-director of the Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading.  Her passion for arts and culture education manifested itself with experience in museum work with the Smithsonian Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the National Museum of American History, she was the artist programmer for the 2004 and 2008 Folklife Festival, the National World War II Reunion on the Mall and the Celebration of Baseball.  Locally, she has worked with Rhode Island Black Storytellers and the National Association of Black Storytellers as the African Marketplace director. Recently, she served as the Local Program Director for Turnaround Arts: Providence.
She has worked in educational systems with a focus on cultural engagement; professional development; and local community activism.  She has held several community at large leadership positions for arts organizations, as a seasoned professional. She currently serves as a board member of Community Music Works and is a member of the Special Committee for Commemorative Works for the City of Providence, she serves several boards and committees throughout the state.
Over the course of her career, she has used her arts expertise in a variety of applications including pre-K, secondary, post-secondary arts coaching and training, working effectively with administrations serving low income students - for April, arts practice is the way we speak life into humanity and this practice is vital to teach our young people.   

Len Cabral is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning storyteller and author who has been engaging and entertaining audiences with his
storytelling performances for more than four decades. He is the recipient of the National Storytelling Network 2001 Circle of Excellence Oracle Award, Honored by Johnson & Wales University as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in 2000 and most recently the recipient of the 2016 Pell Award. Len is one of the founding members of Providence Inner City Arts/Roots Cultural Center. A founding member of the Rhode Island Black Storytellers (RIBS). He is on the board of Rhode Island Center for the Book/ Read Across Rhode Island. As well as a member of the Cranston Arts Commission.

Jacqueline Woodson (www.jacquelinewoodson.com) is the recipient of a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include Coretta Scott King Award winner Before the Ever After; New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle’s Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

Related LibGuide: Kids Reading Across Rhode Island by Danielle Margarida

Date:
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Time:
1:00pm - 2:00pm
Registration has closed.