“Everything alive aches for more”: A Conversation with Kari Gunter-Seymour, Poet Laureate of Ohio, by Renee Shea

Interviews   Photo by Kari Gunter-Seymour / www.karigunterseymourpoet.com Kari Gunter-Seymour (b. 1955) is having a moment—soon to become two years of moments since she was appointed in June 2020 to a two-year term as the Poet Laureate of Ohio. Her 2020 collection, A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen, earned her the additional title of Ohio Poet of the Year. Former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey chose Gunter-Seymour’s words as the final lines in the PBS American Portrait crowdsourced video poem, “Remix: For My People”: “Every word a sepulcher, every syllable a stone rolled away.” In 2021 Gunter-Seymour was one of twenty-three poets laureate, municipal and state, to receive a $50,000 fellowship grant from the Academy of American Poets, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She recently accepted an additional position as artist-in-residence in the “Pages” literacy program for the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University. Formerly Poet Laureate of Athens, Ohio, where she taught graphic communications at Ohio University, Gunter-Seymour currently lives in Albany, Ohio. Renee Shea: Your tenure as poet laureate began and continues in an unprecedented and challenging situation. How’s it going? Kari Gunter-Seymour: As we all know, the pandemic struck really hard in March 2020, so by the time I was appointed in June, I had already immersed myself in a great deal of virtual programming. In the first... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-07 13:41:36 UTC ]
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