Featured 2023 Workshop
Presenters and Performers....
Featured Performers and Presenters
SOUL FIRE POETRY ORGANIZATION is sponsored by the Languages, Literature and Philosophy Department and Southern Word. The group workshops weekly and performs spoken word on campus and throughout the city. The workshop is open to students who love poetry and expression. It's mantra is inspired by Amiri Baracka: "We want live words of a hip word/ live flesh and coursing blood. Hearts, Brains, Souls splintering Fire!"
SOUL FIRE POETRY ORGANIZATION is sponsored by the Languages, Literature and Philosophy Department and Southern Word. The group workshops weekly and performs spoken word on campus and throughout the city. The workshop is open to students who love poetry and expression. It's mantra is inspired by Amiri Baracka: "We want live words of a hip word/ live flesh and coursing blood. Hearts, Brains, Souls splintering Fire!"
MELISSA GORDON is a poet, educator, and therapist in Nashville, TN. She has a passion for promoting resilience and healing in schools, organizations, and companies. As a regional diversity, equity, and inclusion expert, she helps organizations and communities bridge across differences to develop race consciousness. As an arts educator, she has a passion for using poetry, filmmaking, and narratives to shape stories where people feel whole.
Workshop Title: "Armed for Change: Ready, Aim, Write!" Apr. 5, 2023: 5-6p
In this session, participants will explore writing as a tool of revolt. Participants will write prose and poetry to revolt against regressive policies in local and national politics. Each writer will shape their hopes for social reform and personal freedom. This workshop is intended to center the writer as an important contributor to social justice.
Workshop Title: "Armed for Change: Ready, Aim, Write!" Apr. 5, 2023: 5-6p
In this session, participants will explore writing as a tool of revolt. Participants will write prose and poetry to revolt against regressive policies in local and national politics. Each writer will shape their hopes for social reform and personal freedom. This workshop is intended to center the writer as an important contributor to social justice.
Shawn Whitsell is a father, activist, poet and teaching artist. He is also an actor, playwright, director, producer and founder of the Destiny Theatre Experience. His one-man show "23/1" was named "Best Blend of Theater and Activism" by the Nashville Scene, for its message about solitary confinement and mass incarceration. When he isn't on stage, he visits schools and community spaces, teaching spoken word for Southern Word and drama for a number of arts institutions. He also serves as a volunteer teacher/facilitator for the School for Alternative Learning & Transformation (SALT) at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Shawn was a 2020 Nashville New Leaders Council fellow and is currently a member of the NLC board. He also serves on the boards of Street Theatre Company and Rooftop Nashville. He is a member of the Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board, the Jail Data Special Committee and the Co-Chair of the Criminal Justice Task Force for Nashville Organized For Action and Hope (NOAH).
Workshop Title: "Freedom Cries! Chant down the House," Apr. 12, 2023: 5-6p
Participants will engage in a chant writing workshop based on a social justice issue and stage a mock protest.
Workshop Title: "Freedom Cries! Chant down the House," Apr. 12, 2023: 5-6p
Participants will engage in a chant writing workshop based on a social justice issue and stage a mock protest.
Jacquelyn Swift is a performance poet. She received her MFA from Sewanee University, and is a graduate of the Periscope Artist Entrepreneur Training. In addition to her self-help poetry book “Monsters: Poetry on How to Bite Back,” Swift further expands her life as a writer by teaching people how to find their stage legs as well as how to find their voice on paper through her workshop series “Fangs: Take a Bite out of your Stage Fright.”
Workshop Title: Let Your Shadows Shine, Apr. 19, 2023: 5-6p
For there to be light there must be darkness. For there to be sunshine there must be rain. The world isn't black and white because the gray area creates our reality. Every day we are faced with social, emotional, and physical dilemmas that require us to understand both sides of the coin to inform our decisions and behavior. In this workshop we will write to explore the light and darkness within ourselves as we learn to fully accept both sides of our humanness.
Workshop Title: Let Your Shadows Shine, Apr. 19, 2023: 5-6p
For there to be light there must be darkness. For there to be sunshine there must be rain. The world isn't black and white because the gray area creates our reality. Every day we are faced with social, emotional, and physical dilemmas that require us to understand both sides of the coin to inform our decisions and behavior. In this workshop we will write to explore the light and darkness within ourselves as we learn to fully accept both sides of our humanness.
Matthew McCoy is an educator, a scholar, a musician, an artist, an active member of my community and a lover of Jah (God-The Most High) and peace. He taught at Fisk University and Tennessee State University between 2001 and 2019. He is a band leader who has done various jobs from delivering phone books and newspapers to working with youth in outreach and after school settings.
Workshop title: Rebel Music: The Power of Protest in Song. Apr. 21, 2023: 1-2:30p (on Campus)
We will explore the relationship between music and protest. We will discuss how protest is defined. We will explore multiple examples of protest in popular music from South Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. I will share a song or two original and discuss how they fall within the purview of protest songs. Throughout the entire presentation we hope to extract experience and protest are intertwined.
Workshop title: Rebel Music: The Power of Protest in Song. Apr. 21, 2023: 1-2:30p (on Campus)
We will explore the relationship between music and protest. We will discuss how protest is defined. We will explore multiple examples of protest in popular music from South Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. I will share a song or two original and discuss how they fall within the purview of protest songs. Throughout the entire presentation we hope to extract experience and protest are intertwined.
Featured Workshop Presenters and facilitators
DR. MICHELLE J. PINKARD is the program coordinator for the I Want to Write initiative and an Associate Professor at Tennessee State University. Pinkard is also the faculty adviser to Soul Fire Poetry Organization. She teaches African American Literature, Poetics and Composition. Her scholarship is inspired by intersections in African American, Gender, Modernism and Creative Writing studies. She is also a poet whose work was published in Callaloo Journal, and The African American Review. Pinkard’s essays, short stories and poems have appeared in several anthologies. Prior to teaching, Pinkard performed award-winning work in public relations and print journalism, which provided the investigative foundation to become an interdisciplinary scholar of African American cultural history. Ultimately, the apex of these varied interests is an examination of the way identity affects the creative process. She is interim chair of the Languages, Literature and Philosophy at TSU.
As a poet and speaker, TIA SMEDLEY-SEKIMONYO is marked for unforgettable performances that boast of her roots in the theatre. From 2005 to 2012, she was half of the spoken word, dynamic duo- GRAVATY; the 2007 Spoken Word Southern Entertainment Artist of the Year. She has opened for the likes of Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets; acclaimed Poet-Jessica Care Moore; HBO Def Poet-J. Ivey; BET Sunday Best favorite- Latice Crawford; successful indie artist- Anthony David; Grammy nominated artists such as: Raheem DeVaughn, Mint Condition and Grammy winner Dwele to name a few. Since 2009, Tia helped create poetry and spoken word curricula she teaches in elementary schools through the university level for Southern Word. She is a teaching artist for the National Museum of African American Music’s after-school programs. Tia is also a contributing visionary of Tennessee State University's annual, two-day poetry and spoken word conference created by Dr. Michelle Pinkard, "I WANT TO WRITE" and has remained the resident poet for the university’s spoken word organization, SoulFire. Tia is currently the founder of Linguistic Liberation (www.linguisticliberation.com).