Sistah Words – readings of poems from the writings of local poets Georgia Popoff and Mary Slechta with an introduction by Griot Vanessa Johnson.

Georgia will be reading selections from Psychometry, work in progress that is based in persona poetry, giving breath to voices of women throughout history, some historical, others fictional, but all providing portraits of generations of those who have lived before us and strove for identity and recognition, as well as those who took up the gauntlet of advancing the power of women in community and society.

Mary will be reading poems from her collection and new ones organized around the idea of journey—inward and outward, across time–as a mode of unwrapping the self.

Georgia A. Popoff, of Syracuse, NY, is an educator, arts-in-education specialist, Comstock Review senior editor, Downtown Writers Center Workshops Coordinator and faculty member.  Coauthor  with Quraysh Ali Lansana of Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (Teachers & Writer Collaborative, 2011), a book for teachers on poetry in K-12 classrooms, her third collection of poetry, Psalter: The Agnostic’s Book of Common Curiosities, was published by Tiger Bark Press in June 2015. In June  2017, Haymarket Books will release The Whiskey of Our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent, coedited with Lansana, a collection of critical and creative essays to mark the centennial anniversary of Ms. Brooks.

Mary McLaughlin Slechta is the author of Wreckage on a Watery Moon and two chapbooks. One of her current projects is a game book adventure series set in the fictional “Winterville.” The first installment is The Spoonmaker’s Diamond released in 2015. She’s currently an editor with Great Weather for Media.

Free to the Public