Event

A Creative Writing Program Event

watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV

listen to an audio recording of this event

Philadelphia’s two poetry eminences will visit the Writers House for a joint reading. Yolanda Wisher, Philadelphia's third Poet Laureate, and Otter Jung-Allen, Philadelphia's fourth Youth Poet Laureate, have both dedicated themselves to representing the city with events and community service initiatives that advance the arts of the city. This reading is proudly hosted by the Creative Writing Program.

OTTER JUNG-ALLEN is a seventeen-year-old genderqueer poet and performer from West Philly. They are the coach of Science Leadership Academy's Slam League team, a 2015 Brave New Voices International Champion, the 2015 Liberty Unplugged Champion, and the 2016-17 Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. Jung-Allen was inducted as the fourth youth poet laureate in July 2016; their recently announced signature project, Voices of the East Coast, will publish original work by young poets ages 14 to 19 from Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York City, Hampton Roads, and Atlanta in a joint production with the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, the National Youth Poet Laureate program, Urban Word, and Penmanship Books. 

YOLANDA WISHER is the 2016-2018 Poet Laureate of the City of Philadelphia. Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro and the co-editor of Peace is a Haiku Song. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Fence, Chain, MELUS, PUBLICPOOL, Hanging Loose, and GOOD Magazine and the anthologies Gathering Ground and The Ringing Ear. Wisher is a 2016 Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence, 2015 Pew Fellow, Center for Performance and Civic Practice Catalyst Initiative grantee (2015), Leeway Art & Change Award recipient (2008), and the inaugural Montgomery County Pennsylvania Poet Laureate (1999). She holds an M.A in English/Creative Writing-Poetry from Temple University and a B.A. in English/Black Studies from Lafayette College. Wisher founded and directed the Germantown Poetry Festival (2006-2010), served as Director of Art Education for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (2010-2015), and worked as Chief Rhapsodist of Wherewithal for the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (2014-2016). She lives in Germantown with her partner Mark Palacio and their son Thelonious. Her signature project as Poet Laureate, Outbound Poetry Festival, will bring poets from up and down the East Coast to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station in April to celebrate the serendipity of poetry. Slam poets, page poets, teaching poets, jazz poets, and people’s poets will deliver daily rhapsodies to the citizens of Philadelphia and riff along the continuum of poetry and song in an extended Saturday performance.