Associate professor at Alcorn to teach poetry writing workshop

Associate professor at Alcorn to teach poetry writing workshop

Associate professor at Alcorn to teach poetry writing workshop

Associate Professor in the Department of English and Foreign Languages Murray Shugars will teach a poetry writing workshop for the second annual Experience Poetry in Vicksburg, a National Poetry Month celebration.

Dr. Murray Shugars, director of the Alcorn Writing Center and a Vicksburg resident, will instruct two workshops, Saturday, April 28, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library Auditorium, 700 Veto Street.

Shugars said he is excited to be a part of this annual celebration of poetry.

“I was honored last year to be among the featured poets for the first annual Experience Poetry in Vicksburg,” said Shugars. “I am grateful to be involved this year as a poetry workshop instructor.”

The annual poetry event is a collaboration to bring poetry to the community, according to an event flyer. The organizations involved in the effort include the Friends of the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library, Lorelei Books, the Mississippi Writers Guild, and the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.

Shugars believes that this event is unique.

“Outside of a university town, I don’t know of a similar effort to bring poetry to a Mississippi community,” said Shugars. “Vicksburg is famous for a lot of things, and it is beginning to develop a reputation for poetry.”

Shugars gives much of the credit to Laura Weeks, the proprietor of Lorelei Books. Besides being a founding member of Experience Poetry in Vicksburg, Weeks hosts a quarterly poetry reading in Vicksburg and promotes poetry and writers whenever possible, said Shugars.

The 2012 Experience Poetry in Vicksburg featured readings follow Shugars’ poetry workshops Saturday, April 28, beginning 3:00 p.m. and ending 5:00 p.m., at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library Auditorium. The featured speakers include Hattiesburg resident Angela Ball, Washington D.C. native Sandra Beasley, and Rustin, Louisiana, native Genaro Ky Ly Smith. Ball is a Professor of English in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi and editor of Mississippi Review; Beasley is the winner of the Barnard Women Poets and the New Issues Poetry Prize and is the 2010 University of Mississippi Summer Poet in Residence; and Smith, a recipient of the Louisana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship, teaches literature, composition, and creative writing at Louisiana Tech University. Mississippi novelist Howard Bahr, Jackson resident and winner of the 2012 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Literary Arts, will moderate the panel of three scholars who will read their poetry and conduct a discussion and audience question-and-answer.