News & Events
News Articles
Poet Ekere Tallie To Give Free Reading at MHC
Mars Hill College will host a reading by New York-based poet Ekere Tallie, on Wednesday, March 28, at 8 pm in Spainhour Hall, in the Moore Building on campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Among other themes, Tallie’s poetry focuses on racial justice, the empowerment of women, and life in New York City after September 11. Her visit to campus is sponsored by the Department of Language and Literature and the Visiting Artists and Lecturers Committee at Mars Hill College.
Tallie currently teaches at York College in New York City and has served as an invited speaker at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Ramapo College. She has taught and performed in various forums and locales in North America, Europe, and Southern Africa. She was the recipient of a 2010 Queens Council on the Arts grant, and her work has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her first collection of poetry, Karma’s Footsteps, was released by the UK-based Flipped Eye Publishing in September of 2011.
Dr. Adrienne Akins, assistant professor of English, said: "Tallie’s poetry provides an illuminating perspective on history: both her family’s history as African Americans in the Jim Crow South and more recent United States history, centralized in New York City life in the wake of September 11. Tallie’s work also deals with many important women’s issues; as such, hearing Tallie read and speak about her poetry could be helpful and inspiring for students who have dealt with these issues, as well as appropriate for Women’s History month in March."