Arts in October: Poetry Workshop with Poet, Jennifer Schomburg Kanke

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke will host a 40-minute poetry workshop that brings the structure of her popular "Meter&Mayhem" writing prompts to life. Writers will be invited to explore family stories in a way that connects them with their own creative spirit and poetic rhythms. This will be a generative, rather than critiquing, workshop.

Materials: paper and pen or computer (the notes app on your phone will work in a pinch, but we’ll be doing a significant amount of freewriting and something with more space works best)

Structure:

Two 10-minute freewriting sessions on a given prompt

10-minute en-rhythming session

10-minute drafting session

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, after spending most of her life in Ohio, now lives in Florida where she is at work on a reimagining of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline set in the Florida Panhandle during the 1980s. Her work typically focuses on issues of class and gender in Appalachia and has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, Massachusetts Review, and Shenandoah. She is the winner of a Sheila-Na-Gig Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction. Her zine about her experiences undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, Fine, Considering, is available from Rinky Dink Press (2019). Her full-length poetry collection, The Swellest Wife Anyone Ever Had, about Appalachian Ohio, will be available from White Violet Press in Fall 2024. She can be found on YouTube hosting the Meter Cute Interviews podcast on Meter&Mayhem.

Of local interest, Jennifer Schomburg Kanke lived in Athens County from 1993-1999 and again from 2001-2010 and has a BSEd, MEd, and MA from Ohio University.