News and Events

Celebrating World Poetry Day with the Wick Poetry Center Traveling Stanzas

Wednesday, March 24th from 5:00-6:00 PM (EDT)
David Hassler

In an interactive, multi-media presentation, Wick Poetry Center Director David Hassler will share poems, stories, and videos from the award-winning Traveling Stanzas community arts program that seeks to bring poetry to everyday lives through innovative digital tools and interactive exhibits. In collaboration with many global partners over the last ten years, Traveling Stanzas programs have engaged schools, healthcare facilities, literacy centers, libraries, national parks, social service agencies for refugee and immigrant populations, senior centers, and veterans' organizations. Drawing from a wide range of projects, Hassler will share how poetry can be used as a powerful tool to empower people of all ages to make meaning of their lives and deepen their sense of belonging. This interactive presentation will include time for us all to pause and reflect on our lives, to feel renewed and inspired, and to share our voices to the Global Peace Poem in celebration of 100 years of the English Speaking Union.

David Hassler directs the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. He is the author of two books of poems, including Red Kimono, Yellow Barn, for which he was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year 2006. He is co-editor of the forthcoming book Speak a Powerful Magic: Ten Years of the Traveling Stanzas Poetry Project, which will be published in March 2019 by the Kent State University Press. His play, May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970, based on the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, was published in 2013 by the Kent State University Press along with a Teacher's Resource Book. A filmed version of the play that he co-produced received the 2014 Oral History Association's Nonprint Format Award. With photographer Gary Harwood, he is the author of the documentary book titled Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community, which received the Ohioana Book Award and the Carter G. Woodson Honor Book Award, and was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. With Maggie Anderson, he is co-editor of Learning by Heart: Contemporary American Poetry About School and After the Bell: Contemporary American Prose About School. He received a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.F.A. from Bowling Green State University. His TEDx talk, "The Conversation of Poetry," conveys the power of poetry to strengthen communities.