This show's guests are poets, teachers, and community leaders Kathie Klarreich, founder of Exchange for Change - a nonprofit teaching writing in prisons - and P. Scott Cunningham, founder and executive director of the O, Miami Poetry Festival, which celebrates Miami, FL through the lens of poetry. Together they host the Florida Prison Poet Laureate initiative. They talk about the importance and impact of writing, both in their own lives and in the context of those incarcerated in the correction facility system, as well as the activities and discoveries created by poetry in the O, Miami Poetry Festival.
Kathie Klarreich is the author of “Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou, and Civil Strife in Haiti” and a contributor to two anthologies: “So Spoke the Earth” and “Women, Writing, and Prison.” In 2010 she received a Knight International Journalism Fellowship to train journalists in investigative reporting in Haiti, where she spent half of the last 24 years reporting for print, radio and television, including Time, The New York Times, ABC, and NPR. Kathie started facilitating writing workshops in the correctional system in 2009 and began the writing exchanges with academic institutions in 2013. She founded Exchange for Change, a nonprofit that teaches writing in prisons and youth residential centers in 2014.
P. Scott Cunningham is a poet and essayist and the author of Ya Te Veo selected by Billy Collins for the Miller Williams Poetry Series. His writing has appeared in numerous journals and reviews as have his translations of Alejandra Pizarnik, César Vallejo, and Frank Báez. Scott is the founder and director of O, Miami, a non-profit organization that celebrates Miami, FL through the lens of poetry, and the co-founder & executive editor of Jai-Alai Books, a regional publishing imprint. A featured speaker at forums including The Aspen Institute, TedX, and more, Scott has been named one of "20 Under 40 Emerging South Florida Leaders" by The Miami Herald and one of 51 “brilliant urbanites who are helping to build the cities of America's future" by Fast Company.
Together, Scott and Kathie host the Florida Prison Poet Laureate initiative. The current laureate is Christopher Malec and the prior poet laureate was Eduardo Martinez.
