Poetry Roundtable
with Donald Vincent and Gretchen Primack
Donald Vincent / Convenient Amnesia
This Poetry Roundtable with Donald Vincent and Gretchen Primack will feature readings and discussion with both authors, for exploring poetry as an instrument for “Speaking the Voice Unheard” and the ways the power of poetry can be a tool for deconstructing belief systems about which lives matter, who is caged and who is free, which lives are grievable, and how cultural and personal narratives are shaped and carried through generations and in society.
Donald Vincent will be sharing from his recently released collection of poems Convenient Amnesia and from his album Vegan Paradise. Gretchen Primack will be sharing from her book Visiting Days and her past works in KIND.
This is a free zoom event.
Advance sign up is required by November 18
For questions, email info@compassionarts.org
ABOUT DONALD VINCENT
DONALD VINCENT, also known as Mr. Hip, is a poet, educator, Hip Hop and spoken word artist of the album Vegan Paradise , and founder of le pamplemuse™ a content development platform dedicated to spreading the awareness of vegan companies. He is also the creator of ‘That’s So Vegan’, a visual project merging creativity and education on plant-based foods and products with uplifting information on vegan lifestyles.
His most recent work, Convenient Amnesia (Broadstone Books), is a poetry collection that illuminates the legacy of racism and violence, appropriation, disenfranchisement and, and all those things we’d like to forget, ignore, or disown.
Donald Vincent is a founding contributor in the Compassion Arts’ collective of creative artists and has been a featured presenter at past Compassion Arts Festival events including Symphony Space (NYC), Amazing Things Arts Center ( MA), and the emcee of CAF 2017 benefit for Maple Farm Sanctuary. Currently based in Los Angeles, he is a professor of English Composition at UCLA and Literature at Emerson College. He recently completed working as the Community Outreach Coordinator for PEN America traveling throughout the country organizing press freedom advocacy events and programming. A past Culture and Animals Foundation grant honoree, he enjoys using storytelling as an instrument for change and awareness of advancing an understanding of justice and compassion.
ABOUT GRETCHEN PRIMACK
Gretchen Primack is a poet, an educator and a passionate advocate for the rights and welfare of both human and non-human animals. She's the author of three poetry collections: Visiting Days (Willow Books), Kind (Post Traumatic Press), and Doris' Red Spaces (Mayapple Press), and a chapbook, The Slow Creaking of Planets (Finishing Line 2007). She co-wrote The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals with Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary co-founder Jenny Brown (Penguin Avery 2012). Her poetry publication credits include The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, FIELD, Poet Lore, The Massachusetts Review, The Antioch Review, New Orleans Review, Rhino, Tampa Review, and many others journals and anthologies.
She has taught and/or administrated with prison education programs (mostly college) since 2005. Her recent work Visiting Days is a collection of persona poems about invisible and discarded individuals we do not see. Like with her poetry collection KIND, which speaks as an impassioned voice of insight, compassion and advocacy for animals; the narrative lens of Primack's poetry asks us to see the view through another's eyes.
Gretchen Primack has been a participant in Compassion Arts programs with Jane O’Hara , where she has performed readings of her poems in connection with O’Hara’s artwork for presentations at PACE University for Earth Month 2016 and Symphony Space ( NYC) for the Compassion Arts and Culture & Animals Festival 2017.