Where - ModernFormations, 4919 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh
Time – 8:00 p.m.
Cover - $5 or free w/ contribution to potluck
Nancy Krygowski’s first book of poems, Velocity, was chosen for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. A recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, a Pittsburgh Foundation Grant, and residencies at Jentel, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, she was co-founder and booker of poets for the Gist Street Reading Series. She is an adult literacy instructor at Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council.
Kevin Klauscher is 23 years old and has lived his entire life in Pittsburgh, minus a year in Ohio. He has been doing creative writing and poetry for 9 years independently and playing the drums for ten years. Kevin's poetry is very spiritual and at times slightly political. He has been an activist for the past five years helping to organize peace rallies as well as other grass-roots events aimed at raising local geopolitical awareness and the importance of independent thought in the 21st century. His influences for writing include MLK Jr, JFK, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Che Guevara, Mother Jones, Everyone involved in the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s-70s (Black Panther party and American Indian Movement in particular). Musical influences include: Ani DiFranco, Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, BB King, The Roots, Oldschool and Underground Hiphop, Saul Williams, Last Poets, Jazz, Funk, Soul, Classic Rock, Every DJ that still spins vinyl and too many artists to name in particular.Kevin finds any artist that does what they do on their own terms and conveys their own messages to be inspiring. He attended the Oakland School, which is a private college-prepatory academy with a focus on creative arts .. and has no formal secondary education, however is self-taught and deeply interested in ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, sociology, psychology, metaphysics, spirituality and comparitive religion, history, astrology, astronomy, philosophy, and art among other things.
Stefanie Wielkopolan is a Michigan poet who keeps moving back to Pittsburgh. Up until the age of eight, she grew up in the family's bowling alley in Dearborn, MI and she credits this experience for her love of a good dive bar, people watching, and writing poetry. She received her M.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Michigan and in 2008 her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Chatham University. Her first collection of poetry, Border Theory, was published by Black Coffee Press in 2011. She currently teaches English and creative writing at Waynesburg University and the Community College of Allegheny County.
