Poems often allow us to go beyond facts, figures, and reportage to grasp the experience of living in another place and to feel more deeply the challenges and the hopes. In this interactive session, readers will present and briefly respond to poems from Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with the poems as well.

Ellen Goldsmith, who will lead this workshop, is involved in poetry as a writer and a teacher.  Her books include Where to Look, Such Distances and No Pine Tree in This Forest Is Perfect, which won the 1997 Slapering Hol Chapbook Prize. She teaches classes and workshops for Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, 5-Towns Adult and Continuing Education,  The Coastal Senior College, and The Farnsworth Museum.