On Thursday, February 17, 2022, award-winning poet, Michael Kleber-Diggs of Minneapolis,  presented a master class via zoom entitled Poetry as a Personal Form of Expression.

This very engaging event was packed with ideas for creating poetry and making this your expressive artform. During his master class, Kleber-Diggs related how his poetry comes from his life experiences. He also discussed his method of creating poetry and his word use. Q & A was a time for open exchange. Professor Rebeca Rivera-Robayo moderated.

This master class-workshop was recorded and captioned and available exclusively to the college community as an unlisted YouTube video through March 19. Please email Cultural Affairs at cultural@sunyorange.edu to be given link access.

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

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.

Questions may be directed to cultural@sunyorange.edu

Image credit: photo of Michael Kleber-Diggs by Ayanna Muata.