The Power of Poetry: Tapping into Your Inner Poet as a Communications Professional
The Santa Barbara chapter of the Association for Women in Communication (AWC-SB) will look at the power of poetry at its next meeting, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on March 3. The monthly meeting will be held via Zoom and the public is welcome. Attendees will learn from some of Santa Barbara’s most inspiring poets how writing, reading, and listening to poetry can deepen understanding, focus thinking, and sharpen messages. Learn what drew Melinda Palacios and Kundai Chikowero to poetry, hear them read their work, and take away ideas about how the elements of poetry can infuse work with new insight, precision, and passion. Presenter Melinda Palacio is a poet, author, and speaker. She has lived in Santa Barbara for over 20 years. Her works include a poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, which won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place 2009 award; the novel, Ocotillo Dreams (ASU Bilingual Press 2011), for which she received the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards and a 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature; and a full-length poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, (Tia Chucha Press 2012), which was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Award, the Paterson Prize, and received First Prize in Poetry at the 2013 International Latino Book Awards. Her latest poetry collection is Bird Forgiveness, 3: A Taos Press 2018. Opening presenter Kundai Chikowero is a senior at Dos Pueblos High School. She is a proactive activist of social justice, community empowerment of underserved populations, and anti-racism. Among her many accolades, Kundai was awarded the Outstanding Youth Leader – City of Santa Barbara in 2018. She is a published poet who has won the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay and Poetry competition six times since seventh grade. In the spirit of the Power of Poetry meeting, attendees are invited to create a haiku describing yourself prior to the meeting (think Haiku Elevator Pitch) and will have the opportunity to share and listen to others in a breakout room during the meeting. There is no meeting charge for AWC-SB members; there is a $10 charge for nonmembers. Register at https://www.womcom.org/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=903060&item_id=1379917 to receive a link to the meeting.
