Visions: Poetry Out Loud is a poetry anthology from workshops held in the spring of 2016 at VISIONS at Selis Manor, a nonprofit adapted learning environment and meeting place for blind youth, adults, and seniors. Teachers & Writers Collaborative was pleased to partner with VISIONS to present Poetry Out Loud for Seniors, a workshop series in which adults explored classic and contemporary poems and wrote their own poetry in response. (Poetry Out Loud is the national poetry memorization and recitation competition for high school students created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. T&W manages Poetry Out Loud statewide in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts.)
We are grateful to the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Department for the Aging for supporting Poetry Out Loud for Seniors through a SU-CASA grant. Thank you to Liz Lee, senior director of caregiver and senior services; Ann DeShazo, senior director of VISIONS at Selis Manor; and Carrie Lewy, Senior Center director.
The participants read and recited classic and contemporary poems from the Poetry Out Loud Anthology and wrote original poems inspired by their readings. The workshop was led by poets-in-residence Janice Lowe and Dave Johnson. As workshop poet Ed Delgado writes, “We may lose sight, but not our vision.” Read on!
Teachers & Writers Magazine is published by Teachers & Writers Collaborative as a resource for teaching the art of writing to people of all ages. The online magazine presents a wide range of ideas and approaches, as well as lively explorations of T&W’s mission to celebrate the imagination and create greater equity in and through the literary arts.
