Kestrel Sponsors Poetry Reading on April 20

On Friday, April 20, Kestrel will be sponsoring a reception and reading from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center, featuring poets Gerry LaFemina and Christophe Casamassima. The event is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served.

“I am delighted to bring these two Kestrel poets to Fairmont State University. Both poets are a model of the innovation, good humor and care required to cultivate the humanities in a post-print, post-eye-contact age,” said Dr. Elizabeth Savage, poetry editor for Kestrel.

Award-winning poet Gerry LaFemina is the author of eight books of poems and prose poems, including last year's "VANISHING HORIZON." A noted editor, fiction writer, translator and teacher, LaFemina directs the Frostburg Center for Creative Writing at Frostburg State University, where he is an Associate Professor of English. He writes regularly about the state of the art of literature for Highbrow Magazine and divides his time between Maryland and New York.

Christophe Casamassima has adapted to multiple personae: editor co-founder of Poetry in Community, an arts organization that works in the spirit of creative literacy and community sustainability through poetry; faculty in the department of Electronic Media and Film. He is the author of five collections of poetry (The Proteus; Joys: a catalogue of disappointment; Ore; Three Suite; Untilted) and a handful of chapbooks. In his spar(s)e time he teaches Guerilla Publishing and bookmaking via repurposing and recycling. He lives and works in Baltimore.

KestrelCollege of Liberal ArtsElizabeth SavageChristophe CasamassimaGerry LaFeminaFolklife Center