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Artifactory Poetry Reading on Sunday, October 20 at 1 p.m. at the Zhang Legacy Collections Center in Kalamazoo, MI

Twelve poets will be reading for Artifactory on October 20, 2019 at 1 p.m. at the Zhang Legacy Collections Center at 1650 Oakland Drive in Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5307. The following writers will present work about important places connected to the history of Kalamazoo, Schoolcraft, and other cities in Southwest Michigan: Kathy Rabbers, Robin Church, Robert Post, Susan Blackwell Ramsey, Nancy Hoy Nott, Jennifer Clark, Elaine M. Seaman, Jill Doster Marcusse, Janet Ruth Heller, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Ruth Moerdyk, and Margaret DeRitter.

Janet Ruth Heller will read her poem “Pamela Brown Thomas,” which concerns a woman in Schoolcraft who was active in the Underground Railroad that helped former slaves escape to freedom in the 1800s.

Historians Sharon Carlson and Lynn Houghton will comment on the unique sites mentioned in the poetry.

The sponsor of Artifactory is Friends of Poetry. Its Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/groups/friendsofpoetry/

Janet Ruth Heller reading her poetry; photo by Hedy Habra
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Janet Ruth Heller

I am the past president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. I have published four poetry books: Nature's Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Communications, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012) and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). My scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My fiction picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has won four national awards. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed twice at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan. Triton College produced another play, Pledging, as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).