Since its beginning in 1983, the Midwest Poets Series, sponsored by The Center for Arts and Letters, has regularly brought to the Rockhurst campus some of the top poets in the country.
This semester featured past winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, Janine Joseph, who read on Nov. 2 in the Arrupe Hall Auditorium. She presented from her two collections of poetry, both of which inform readers of different realities in the world. One advocated for and shared stories about the life of an undocumented immigrant, “Driving Without a License,” and the other recounts her experience regaining her memories and self after suffering a traumatic brain injury, “Decade of the Brain.”
Earlier in October, Kevin Prufer, author of the critically acclaimed 2015 book “Churches,” also held a reading here at Rockhurst. In his most recent collection of poetry, he presented from, “The Fears,” he illustrated different fears, primarily those of death where he took events from his own life and fictionalized them for readers to understand.
Originally created by Robert Stewart, the Midwest Poet Series first sought to bring the best poets from the region to Rockhurst. As the series has progressed, the poets have expanded from those in the Midwest to “nationally and internationally known poets — not necessarily from or living in the Midwest — and several U.S. poet laureates,” said Kristy Peterson, director of The Center for Arts and Letters.
One of the highlights came in the early 1990s, when poet Derek Walcott participated in the series months before he was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Over the years, the purpose of the series has shifted from bringing in Midwest poets to connecting people to others who may have different life experiences in order to gain more insight into the lives of others.
“Above all, poetry, and storytelling generally, is an act of human connection. Through language, we can reach each other across time and space and take a moment to consider a perspective or a way of looking at the world to which we might not otherwise have access or exposure,” said Dr. Jameelah Lang, director of the Midwest Poets Series.
The series has brought award-winning, emerging and responsive poets to campus to read some of their work and get involved in Q&As with the audience. Four to six poets come to Rockhurst each year. The poets that are chosen often to bring new perspectives to the student body or mirror the students or community in some way.
“…it is about inviting more empathy, compassion, mutual understanding, inquiry, and careful listening into what we learn and how we live. It’s an invitation to a conversation. That’s the thing writing can do. It can create and foster a community through the power of storytelling, which are tools that we all have and use in our daily lives,” Lang said.
Dr. Lang, as director of the program is responsible for selecting the poets that come to campus.
“We want to bring in poets whose work is timely and whose work speaks to the concerns and experiences that our students, our community, and the larger world are facing at a given moment,” Lang said.
She added, “We try to make sure the voices we are bringing in are diverse in terms of identities and subject matters represented. I look to what is happening at Rockhurst in particular and the world in general and see if there are voices in the poetry world who can speak to that with nuance and complexity.”
The Midwest Poets Series is a powerful tool for bringing the community together and helping them to better understand the lives of others. The KC community looks forward to the poets that will come in the new year, as well as in the future.
