On Thursday, February 17, 2022, award-winning poet, Michael Kleber-Diggs of Minneapolis, will present a master class via zoom. Poetry as a Personal Form of Expression is scheduled as a 90-minute session from 2 to 3:30pm.

The zoom link is https://sunyorange.zoom.us/j/91670950621

This Black History Month event is offered exclusively to the college community through the collaboration of Cultural Affairs and Committee for Institutional Diversity and Equity (CIDE).

Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, an essayist, and a literary critic. He offers needed guidance on ways forward by urging us to aspire to a form of nurturing defined by tenderness, to a kind of community devoted to mutual prosperity: “Let’s create folklore side-by-side,”… “All of us want,” after all, “our share of light, and just enough rainfall.”

Born and raised in Kansas, his debut poetry collection, Worldly Things was awarded the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. In addition, his works have been published in Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Potomac Review, Hunger Mountain, Memorious, Lit Hub, the Rumpus, Rain Taxi, Water~Stone Review, Midway Review, North Dakota Quarterly and various anthologies. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. He also teaches Creative Writing in Augsburg University’s low-res MFA program and at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. He is a past Fellow with the Givens Foundation for African American Literature and a winner of the Loft Mentor Series in Poetry.

Within his poetry are extremes such as moments of love coupled with moments of wrenching grief. He writes from his experiences, from his heart. During his master class, he will relate how his poetry is his personal expression and he will discuss his method of creating poetry, his inspiration and wording.

Join us and be ready for deep thinking and new ideas, and a person very much in touch with today’s world, or “plain spoken and insisting on the direct gaze,” as described by acclaimed poet Camille Dungy.

Questions may be directed to cultural@sunyorange.edu

Photo credit: Michael Kleber-Diggs by Ayanna Muata.