For Students
- Poetry Performance
- One hour or hour and a half workshops
- Lecture-Demonstrations and Workshops in Preparation for Performance
- Host and Facilitate Student Poetry Readings/Performances
Glenis Redmond is a touring performance poet and a teaching artist. She is available to work in venues across the country: schools, colleges, senior citizen homes, shelters, corporations, festivals, conferences and performing arts center.
Here is an example of one of Glenis Redmond’s residencies working at Asheville Middle School
She books one year out, so it is important to schedule, as soon as possible. Rarely can she accommodate a last minute request.
This poetry workshop is based on the belief that poetry, in addition to being written and read, should be performed.
In session one, teachers learn ways to help students use brainstorming, imagery, and layering to write powerful and effective poems.
Clear and easy poetic structures and formats empower students to expand their imaginations and to cross creative boundaries.
In session two, participants examine ways to involve students in memorizing and performing their poems to further communicate the written word with appropriate voice projection, physical stance, and gesture.
For Teachers of Grades 5-12
3 hours or 6 hours of instruction time
Maximum number of participants: 35
In conjunction with the Kennedy Center
Learn ways to help students in finding the images that reflect their own personal stories and how to use this imagery to write powerful, effective poems. Glenis has several different prompts that engage students in looking at themselves, others and society. She has crafted poems forms such as: Recipes for a Better World, What is Wrong with the World, What’s in My Name and Before (Anti-Bullying) poem form. Students will learn reflection techniques to both deepen and expand their awareness.
For Students
One Hour to 90 Minutes
Maximum number students: 25
This is Glenis Redmond at her best. Her mystic self is loose in this unscripted workshop.
She comes to the table with all her tools, crafts and skills and plays the room much like a jazz musician.
She opens the doors of this workshop by reciting poems and entering into the door of deep revelation by questioning and musing.
Participants will be involved in this lively conversation and use this topic as a jumping off point to create.
Intermediate and Advanced Students
Tailored for the occasion
This is special collaboration with nationally acclaimed poet and performer, Glenis Redmond, fosters creative expression through writing and performing poetry with young and mature writers, while raising the awareness and appreciation of poetry in the greater community.
Through this program, the Peace Center extends its outreach in working with both Greenville County students and adults through events at the Center, working in schools and in afternoon workshops, creating learning opportunities in, through and about these specific art forms, storytelling and poetry.
Through an “Unsung and Tributary Residencies” in Upstate schools, Glenis works with youth in the community to ignite an excitement for writing, storytelling and poetry by helping students find their own poetic voice through connecting to their unique personal histories.
As part of Peace Voices, Glenis also works with young people in our community to build a youth poetry slam for our region as well as creating opportunities for students to publically share their work at the Peace Center.
Additionally, Peace Voices also provides opportunites to grow its reach in for adult populations through attending classes conducted at the Peace Center. The newest event under Peace Voices is Poetic Conversations. It is a reading series to bridge the gap between the academic and stage poets in our community to talk about vital themes impacting our communities.
Peace Voices positions the Peace Center to become a hub where the Upstate literary community can convene to engage in the written and spoken word.
Peace Voices is for adults too. Many people believe poetry is relegated solely to academics or to those possessing a specific artistic disposition. But because everyone has a story to tell, the Voices of Diversity team is convinced anyone can become a poet. Through the writing and telling of our own unique stories, we can better know and understand ourselves, and others in our community.
The purpose of the Voices of Diversity project began with the Dick Riley’s Leadership Initiative.
Megan Riegel the CEO of The Peace Center was a fellow and led her group and other community members to participate in poetry workshops, autobiographical writing exercise with Glenis Redmond. The participated with two sessions led by the renowned poet, Glenis Redmond.
At these sessions Glenis offered writing techniques, guidance and editing as participants create their own unique poems based on the theme: “Where I Am From.” The project culminates with a public reading by 27 individuals at the Peace Center’s Gunter Theatre.
The evening celebrated the diversity of our community in a deeply intimate and personal way, both highlighting our differences and reflecting our commonalities. The first reading in 2013 was hosted by Secretary Richard Riley.
This is an annual event and Glenis invites people from all walks off life to participate in Voices of Diversity. Please contact her if you know of someone who would benefit from telling their story through poetry.
During the State Theatre residency, poet Glenis Redmond conducts Informances (craft talk/performance/artist’s journey), workshops and a community reading at the end of her spring residency.
Glenis travels all over New Jersey from sites, ranging from public schools and residential treatment programs to corporate headquarters and senior centers.
These visits include writing workshops, informances, and performances that culminate at the Crossroads Theatre. State Theatre Residency
Glenis main focus in New Jersey is the community reading with all the participants that she works with from middle schools to senior citizen homes and a program called Senior to Senior.
It is an outreach that Glenis leads in New Brunswick, NJ.
She teaches high school seniors to write poetry at New Brunswick Health Sciences Technology High School and then sharpen their poetic interviewing skills by visiting the New Brunswick Senior Citizen Resource Center with the Super Seniors.
The students then return and read the poems they created to the Super Seniors. The outpouring of gratitude is/was palpable.
Here is an example of one of the poems written by a student to a Super Senior:
A Thousand Pieces
by Brandon Diaz-Abreu
“The world don’t owe me nothing!
Yeah, I said it.
I said it ‘cause I meant it.
A woman like me don’t wait on the world.
I walk my own path; I carve my own destiny.
I can’t say the same for some of these young people.
They done gone senseless some of them!
If they can’t be a super-stah, they’ll be a gang-stah.
Just point and shoot till they get what’s coming to ‘em.
Putting everybody else in jeapordy.
And everybody done changed too.
I can remember back in the day
When a boy listened to his mama and
The girls wore clothes with dignity.
I can remember those hot Summer days.
Those days when you couldn’t do nothing but keep inside to hide from the
heat riding on the waves of the wind.
I didn’t mind much since I’m a indoors girl anyway.
I slipped into my only pink dress, turned up the music, and danced like no
one was watching, even though they probably was.
And people was different back then too.
Growing up in North Carolina, everybody was either black or white.
Today you’ll find the whole world waiting at the bus stop.
But I can’t complain.
I’m a quality woman.
I do my best to support my lot and I hold my head up high.
I’ll make time for sorrow tomorrow.
Today, I kick back, listen to my records, and continue my new puzzle.
A thousand pieces may seem like a lot,
But you know what they say:
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
She lifts a piece of the puzzle and begins her next journey.