Juneteenth Poetry Reading

Join us to honor Juneteenth, celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, with an evening of captivating poetry readings that pay tribute to the rich history, resilience and triumphs of the Black community.  Monday, June 19 at 6:00pm.

Poetry Readers:

Jerry Wemple, MFA, is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, editor, and Professor of English at Bloomsburg University where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program.   He has published three poetry collections. His first, You Can See It from Here, was selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyaakaa for the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. He has a new collection, We Always Wondered What Happened to You, forthcoming from Broadstone Books.

He will read a mix of poetry by others and original poems that speak to his experience growing up as a person of color in rural Pennsylvania.  He also read from Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” a narrative by Zora Neal Thurston, about the experience of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last Africans enslaved in the United States.  The freedom that Juneteenth commemorates was a double-edged sword for African Americans who were mostly met with hostility for trying to begin new lives in freedom.

Maya Sites-Kagenski, a Senior at Bloomsburg University, is the winner of the 2023 Savage Poetry Award, a contest open to all BU students.

Lew Lewis, is a writer, poet, artist, and is currently working on a Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology at Adler University.