Our creative writing outreach program, Horizons, hosted its spring showcase on the evening of June 21 at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, 756 N. Milwaukee.
CCH welcomed an audience of more than 50 people. They enjoyed the work of nine writers, most of them mothers from two South Side family shelters, It Takes a Village and T.A.B. South I. The 90-minute event was free and open to the public.
“I am 38. I am a mother, a teacher’s assistant, and a Taurus, and poetry is a passion,” said Margaret Barnes, before reading one of her poems.
Each year, Senior Community Organizer Wayne Richard offers a creative writing outreach program to 75 mothers living in South Side homeless shelters.
At the annual showcase, writers read their poems and short essays to an audience that includes their children and our staff. The experience is very meaningful, as it becomes clear how important it is for any writer to have an audience listen and appreciate what one has to say.
Horizons has been supported by project-specific grants from the Selma Breskin Kaplan Foundation, Rothman Family Foundation, and the Seabury Foundation.
Photos from the June event are posted on Facebook.
– Anne Bowhay, Media