Founded in 2003 with the support of the Town of Greenburgh (NY) Arts and Culture Committee, the Poetry Caravan's mission is to bring poetry to people who do not have easy access to the spoken or written word. Now a network of 35 Westchester poets who volunteer their services, the Poetry Caravan has conducted over 500 poetry readings and 96 poetry writing workshops since its founding. Each month, the poets visit sites serving the elderly, the emotionally disturbed, women living in shelters, and people undergoing physical rehabilitation to read aloud their own poems as well as those by established masters. Discussion and personal interaction with their audiences characterize these sessions.
In addition to the on-going
schedule of free poetry readings and writing workshops, in 2007 the Poetry
Caravan expanded activities to include Times of Our Lives, an intergenerational poetry writing project; Scenes
of Our Lives, a successor
intergenerational project that added photography to poetry writing; a
partnership with the Westchester Library System celebrating National Poetry
Month; and a prison program in 2009.
Poetry Caravan members
actively engage in publishing their work in a variety of literary outlets,
present their poems at events in Westchester and elsewhere, and teach. During the years 2011-2013, members published 10 chapbooks and 107 poems that appeared in journals or anthologies. The Caravan anthology en(compass), (2005) edited by Usha Akella, Poetry Caravan
founder, contains poems by workshop
participants as well as Poetry Caravan members. In his foreword, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins
praises the poets’ “literary
missionary work.”
The Poetry Caravan has
received a Special Recognition Award for Service from New York-Presbyterian
Hospital Payne Whitney Westchester and a Supporter of the Arts Award from the
Town of Greenburgh. Articles about
the Caravan have appeared in the Scarsdale Inquirer and the New
York Times.
Sites served have included :
the Ruth Taylor Institute at Westchester Medical Center, the Esplanade in White
Plains, Westchester Meadows, The Woodlands, the Osborn Home, Grace Church
Samaritan House, the YWCA Women’s Residential Center, the Greenburgh Alcohol
Treatment Program, Sprain Brook Manor Nursing Home, the Wurtzberg, New York
Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division, and Burke Rehabilitation
Center. Eight venues were served in 2013 for a total of 70 visits.
To join the Caravan or obtain
more information, contact Dr. Ruth Handel, Poetry Caravan manager, at RuthHandel@verizon.net or visit the
website www.PoetryCaravan.org
12/24/2013
