AWC Workshop: "'History' and 'history': writing poems about childhood in the context of cultural changes" with Dr. Ramona Hyman, Harry Moore, and Nancy Owen Nelson
The AWC is proud to present “‘History’ and ‘history’: writing poems about childhood in the context of cultural changes” with Dr. Ramona Hyman, Harry Moore, and Nancy Owen Nelson. The workshop is free for members and will take place on Sunday, November 12th, beginning at 1 PM. The workshop is expected to last for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours.
Each of the presenters of this workshop has written poems in terms of both history—their own personal growing-up years—and History—confronting the larger issues of the day. Come hear them discuss their creative process with each other and with you.
The workshop will include a panel discussion, writing exercises, and discussion.
Dr. Ramona L. Hyman is a writer, professor, and speaker “whose words are powerful memories for us to walk in the 21st century,” says Sonia Sanchez. Dr. Hyman has served as a professor for over thirty-five years. Hyman is a graduate of Temple University (BA), Andrews University (MA), and earned her PhD from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Dr. Joyce Joyce says, as a writer and speaker, “Hyman challenges audiences to explore a poetic imagination grounded in a feel for the southern landscape, African- American literary and political history, Black spirituality, and a creative fusion of Black folk speech with a Euro-American poetic vernacular. Dr. Ramona L. Hyman emerges as a strong . . .intellectual poetic voice.” Dr. Hyman is the co-editor of African American Seventh-day Adventist Healers in a Multi-cultural Nation (Pacific Press) and two collections of poetry--I Am Black America and In the Sanctuary of ‘de South. She is the author of the children’s book Grandma Annie’s Poetry. In 2022, she was included in Resonate, a collection of essays by Seventh-day Adventist Women Scholars. She is also included in the anthology Restore (November 2023), paper proceedings from the 2022 Adventist Society for Religious Studies. Presently Hyman is working on a collection of essays-- “Montgomery 55 on My Mind: Lessons from the Boycott.” She has been awarded grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2022, Dr. Hyman was appointed to serve as a Governor’s appointee for the Alabama State Council on the Arts by Governor Kay Ivey.
Dr. Hyman can be contacted at ramona.hyman@yahoo.com.
Nancy Owen Nelson earned her BA from Birmingham-Southern and her MA and PhD from Auburn University. Her poems have been published in The South Dakota Review, Graffiti Rag, What Wildness is This: Women Write About the Southwest, The MacGuffin, A Cloud of Possibility, Oberon, and This/That/Lit online journal. Published books include her memoirs, Searching for Nannie B: Connecting Three Generations of Southern Women (2015) and Divine Aphasia: A Woman’s Search for Her Father (2021); her poetry chapbook, My Heart Wears No Colors (2018); and her poetry book, Portals: A Memoir in Verse (2019). In 2019, her poem “Africatown,” was awarded second place for free verse in the Alabama Writers Conclave competition. Her latest book, Five Points South: Poems from an Alabama Pilgrimage, is based on a road trip she took with her late husband, Roger, in 2019. Five Points South was awarded the Book of the Year, 2022, by the Alabama State Poetry Society. In May, 2023, Nelson moved to Florence Alabama, where she is serving as editor of Seven Points Publishing Company.
Recipient of the 2014 Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, Harry Moore is the author of the poetry collections Bearing the Farm Away (Kelsay Books, 2018) and Broken and Blended: Love’s Alchemy (Kelsay Books, 2021), along with four chapbooks: What He Would Call Them (Finishing Line Press, 2013); Time’s Fool: Love Poems (Mule on a Ferris Wheel Press, 2014); Retreat: A Way Forward (Finishing Line Press, 2017); and Beyond Paradise: The Unweeded Garden (Main Street Rag, 2020).
A third collection, We the People: Confessions of a Caucasian Southerner, is forthcoming from Broadstone Books.
His poems have appeared in Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Plainsongs, Xavier Review, Pudding Magazine, Slipstream, Main Street Rag, South Carolina Review, Blue Unicorn, Ponder Review, Anglican Theological Review, Pensive, and other journals.
Retired after teaching writing and literature for four decades in Alabama community colleges, he lives with his wife, Cassandra, in Decatur, Alabama, and serves as an assistant editor of POEM magazine. More at harryvmoore.com.