Angelo Geter with Miho Kinnas

Angelo is a poet and performance artist also known in the spoken word world as "EyeAmBic." He is a National Poetry Slam champion, Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam finalist, Southern Fried Regional Poetry Slam finalist, and a 2019 All-America City winner. He has performed at venues and competitions across the country, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Watering Hole, an organization dedicated to holding spaces for poets of color in the oral and written traditions of poetry. He also works as the Director of Campus Programming at Winthrop University, and he is the poet laureate of Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Miho Kinnas is a writer, translator, and poet. She is the author of three poetry collections: Today, Fish Only (2014), Move Over Bird (2019) from Math Paper Press, and Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias (2023) from Free Verse Press. Elaine Equi selected her poem, Three Shrimp Boats on The Horizon, for Best American Poetry 2023. Also, in 2023, a book of poems in collaboration with E. Ethelbert Miller was published by Pinyon Publishing. She leads poetry workshops based on short Japanese poetic forms at various organizations, including Writers.com, New York Writers Workshop, Pat Conroy Literary Center, and local schools. She lives on Hilton Head Island, where she swims in the ocean and the rivers and operates a pop-up bookshop, An Island Bookshelf.

Workshop description.

Sticks & Stones: Turning Grief Into Verse

The saying "sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a phrase that has been used for countless years to illustrate the idea that words don't hurt. However,  we all know that words have a large impact. The key is how we use them, particularly when it comes to grief and loss.

This workshop will explore how poetry can transform our relationship with grief by using elegies, language and imagery to relinquish pain, give power and honor our losses.