Event highlights students

When Natasha Rodriguez was in high school, Kent State’s Wick Poetry Center came to her school and taught her about poetry. The same happened to Elizabeth Hall when she was in elementary school.

Today, they are both Kent State students and winners of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Scholarship Award. They will share their work with the public in the Wick Poetry Center’s “Celebrating Our Own” 7:30 p.m. tonight in the Kiva.

“We encouraged their voices years ago, and now they’re here at Kent State as scholarship winners, which is really exciting,” said Nicole Robinson, Wick Poetry Center program and outreach coordinator.

“Celebrating Our Own,” features readings by undergraduate and high school winners of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Scholarship Award.

“It’s more than just giving money to these students,” Robinson said. “It is about being a part of a writing community, about the Wick Center encouraging them to continue with their writing … and encouraging them to share their voices.”

Other highlights of this semester’s series will include readings by Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn, Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize winner Edward Micus, Adam Sol, Tsipi Keller and Edward Tick, founder of a nonprofit agency that helps heal war veterans.

Each year, the Wick Poetry Center awards more than $20,000 in tuition scholarships to Kent State students. More information about the scholarship contests can be found on the Wick Poetry Center Web site, www.kent.edu/wick

Contact College of Arts and Sciences reporter Lauren Spilar at [email protected].