Mantua – The DMRC’s Pop-Up Artists Market is in full swing this holiday season, but it’s not just a place to find distinctive, hand-crafted gifts. The unique venue will host a variety of cultural events throughout the season, as well. This Sunday, December 2nd, the pop-up market will be filled with poetry. It’s an effort to bolster culture and the arts in the village, according to Toomas Tubalkain, of the DMRC, “to inspire residents to look to poetry as another way of seeking truth and honest expression through art.”
According to Tubalkain, Sunday’s poetry reading will start with an opportunity for local students and adults to share their work. Afterward, David Lucas, the Ohio Poet Laureate will take the stage. In sharing what attendees should expect to see and hear, Lucas shared, “They should expect to hear poetry and to hear about poetry—specifically, how pervasive in our everyday lives poetry is.” He joking added, “They may also expect me to try to sell them a timeshare.”
Lucas continued, “I hope this event will appeal to those who may already be interested in poetry, but just as much to those who maintain a certain skepticism about an art form that too often confounds or intimidates us.” Lucas shared, “I hope they’ll find that poetry is everywhere, even if poems sometimes seem unapproachable.”
Jo Walsh-Cobb, third-grade teacher at Crestwood Intermediate School, has seen how poetry can ignite a fire in her students. Her class took part in a special program with the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. The program’s Outreach Manager, Charles Malone, traveled to Cobb’s classroom throughout the school year to share poetry and help her students craft their own work.
“Teaching today is more formulated,” Cobb explained. “Kids aren’t given as much opportunity to think and respond to questions.” But through their interaction with Malone and his students, students are empowered to find their voices. “And these kids are amazing,” Cobb marveled. Through this collaborative program, she’s seen struggling readers and writers blossom. She recalled a selectively mute student from last year, who worked painstakingly on an eight-line poem through the program. At the end of the term, she shared her work out loud in class. “It’s so exciting — there’s power in words,” she beamed.
The program has continued at Crestwood this year, at both the elementary and high school levels. Poems and poets from Crestwood Schools, as well as poets from the community will be featured in a special event at Mantua’s Pop-up Artists Market on Sunday, December 2nd at 2 pm. At 3 pm, Ohio Poet Laureate Dave Lucas will offer a poetry reading.
“We have invited Crestwood student poets, friends from the Wick Poetry Center at Kent, Hiram poets have been invited and community poets,” Tubalkain added. “This poetry event will appeal to everyone interested in the arts and interested in witnessing the creativity of local students, poets of all levels and will be capped off with David Lucas.”
Lucas added, “I’d be just as eager to reach someone who may have no interest in writing poetry, but who might already have noticed the wonderful strangeness of our spoken and written language. To them I’d say: keep looking, keep listening closely.”
The event will be held in the Mantua Pop-Up Artists Market on the corner of East Prospect and Main Street. For more information, visit www.revitalizemantua.org.
