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NELSONVILLE The February session of the Spoken & Heard series hosted by Kari Gunter-Seymour, Poet Laureate of Ohio, will be held 7 p.m. Thursday at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville.
Spoken & Heard is a seasonal series of literary events featuring award-winning authors, poets and singer/songwriters from across the country.
February’s event will feature poet Allison Joseph and author Wesley Browne. To register go to stuartsoperahouse.org.
Joseph lives, writes and teaches in Carbondale, Ill., where she is on the faculty at Southern Illinois University.
Her poetry collection, “Confessions of a Barefaced Woman” (Red Hen Press) was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry and won the Feathered Quill Book Award.
Yellow Springs kicked off the beginning of 2020, as always, with the traditional ball drop overseen by Lance Rudegeair; MTFR personnel handed out hot cocoa, and at least one marriage proposal greeted the new year.
The Reach Out Free Clinic, which was held each Tuesday evening at Central Chapel AME Church, celebrated a year of operation in early January. The free, donation-based clinic, a satellite location of Reach Out Dayton, closed due to the pandemic in March; the Dayton location shuttered permanently later in the year.
Nan Harshaw, longtime chair of the MLK Day Planning Committee, was awarded the annual Peacemaker Award at the 2020 Martin Luther King Day celebration. The late Willa Dallas was also recognized for her civil rights efforts and her role in initiating the annual local event.
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The Winter Solstice Poetry Reading will feature eight poets reading for eight minutes each. Organizers hope the event promotes healing after a trying year.
This year’s theme is “The Healing Earth.”
Poet and emcee Ed Davis says he picked that theme because it’s been a stressful year with the pandemic and a contentious presidential election.
“I’ve always thought of poetry as spiritual,” Davis says. “A few memorable words can really go a long way towards healing people.”
The reading has been moved online, but Davis says that’s allowed them to book a diverse group of readers, from first time performers to Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour.