Award-winning poet, professor and advocate for literacy, Joseph Bathanti was named the state poet laureate. Bathanti is coming to Greene County for a two-day residency on Tuesday and Wednesday. The visit is sponsored by the Greene County Museum through the Grassroots Art Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council.
Bathanti will spend Tuesday with English and creative writing students at Greene Central High School. The same evening from 7 to 8:30 p.m., there will be a reception in his honor at the Greene County Museum, 107 N.W. Third St., in downtown Snow Hill. The public will have an opportunity to meet him and he will be sharing some of his works.
Bathanti will hold a writing workshop for veterans and their family members from 10-11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the museum. The free workshop is open to all veterans of Eastern North Carolina.
After being named the seventh N.C. poet laureate, Bathanti determined he would focus on assisting the veteran population with their writings as a way to express their feelings and emotions. He recently held a similar workshop in Washington, D.C., as part of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s Stages of Healing program.
Bathanti is a professor of creative writing at Appalachian State University in Boone. He is the author of six books. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pa., and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. He came to North Carolina in 1976 to work in the AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program. He has taught workshops in prisons for 35 years.
For more information about this visit, call Sharon Ginn at 252-747-7732.