Marty McConnell
Marty McConnell will conduct a poetry slam workshop on March 22, 2013 from 2:30-3:30 pm in 101 DeBartolo. The workshop is a public event open to all but seat rsvps are appreciated.
This workshop is a primer for the Poetry Slam 101 coming April 18th in the Snite Museum from 5-7 pm. To reserve your seat[s] for the worksop, please register via emailing hoover.14@nd.edu. Everyone is welcome to attend the workshop.The Slam event will not need any prior registration.
McConnell is the author of wine for a shotgun, released in October 2012 on EM Press. Part of the vanguard of poets fusing and refusing the delineations between literary and oral poetry, McConnell’s work blurs the lines between autobiography and personae to comment on and illuminate what it means to live and love outside the lines in early 21st century America.
McConnell’s work has been published in numerous anthologies, including A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry, Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Movement, Spoken Word Revolution Redux, Women of the Bowery, Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, Bullets and Butterflies: Queer Spoken Word Poetry, Will Work for Peace, Women.Period and In Our Own Words: Poetry of Generation X, as well as journals including Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard, Salt Hill Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Drunken Boat, Muzzle Magazine, and more.
Her poetry has been cited in nonfiction works ranging from How to Read the Oral Poem (by John Miles Foley, University of Illinois Press, 2002,) to The God of Yes: Living the Life You Were Promised (by David Edwards, Howard Publishing, 2003).
A member of seven National Poetry Slam teams representing New York City and Chicago, McConnell is the 2012 National Underground Poetry Individual Competition (NUPIC) Champion. In 2011, she completed her first European tour and debuted her one-woman show, “vicebox.” She is a two-time recipient of the Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago’s Office of Tourism and Culture, and received a 2013 grant from the Illinois Arts Council.
McConnell transplanted herself from Chicago to New York City in 1999, after completing the first of three national tours with the Morrigan, an all-female performance poetry troupe she co-founded. She received her MFA in creative writing/poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and for nearly a decade, co-curated the flagship reading series of the New York City-based louderARTS Project. She appeared on both the second and fifth seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. She returned to Chicago in 2009 to co-found Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word.
She has performed and facilitated workshops at schools and festivals around the country, including The Dodge Poetry Festival, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Wicker Park Arts Festival, Connecticut Poetry Festival, Cornell University, University of Utah, James Madison University, Old Dominion, University of Connecticut, University of Arkansas, DePaul University, and more. She lives in Chicago, and travels the country performing and leading workshops.
McConnell's website offers more information about her.
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, the English Department, the Snite Museum of Art, The College of the First Year of Studies, and the Department of Africana Studies.
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