Bradford County Historical Society presents internationally acclaimed poet Craig Czury reading his poems in the Great Room on Wednesday, September 21 at 6 p.m. There is no charge for admission but donations are accepted. Participants are asked to register by calling 570-265-2240 or by email at info@bradfordhistory.com. The museum will open at 5:30 p.m. for those who wish to browse the exhibits prior to the program. This event is a supplement to the normal monthly program schedule.
A native of the Wilkes-Barre Back Mountain, and resident of Reading, where he is Berks County’s Poet Laureate, Craig has relocated to Springville to develop a regional writing project, COMMON GROUND: A Community Conversation about Natural Gas and Northeastern PA.
Author of 20 books of poetry, most notably GOD’S SHINY GLASS EYE, poems from the anthracite coal region, Craig has lived as a folklorist and cultural documentarian in old hotels throughout his home anthracite region, developing a poetry that was hard and dark like anthracite, masculine as rock drills and blasting caps, foreboding as sink holes and black lung. His pioneering work and the profound sense of place that emerges in all of his poetry and workshops gained international recognition. He was invited to be the keynote speaker at the National Summit of Mining Communities, held in Butte, Montana in 2009. His books have been translated into several languages, and he is the recipient of international awards for poetry. Later this year he will be presented the prestigious Honorary Member of Ditët e Naimit award by the Albanians for his literary bridge building between U.S. and Albanian cultures.
A poet in education through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and various national and international arts foundations, Craig spent a year with AmeriCorps’ WritersCorps in Washington, D.C., conducting poetry workshops with inmate-patients at St. Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital, and creating environmental multi-voice poetry performances with urban elementary students to be presented at the Library of Congress. An Americans For The Arts artist exchange fellow, Craig developed a series of poetry performances, through the Derry Playhouse, uniting Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland for BBC Radio Foyle. He has created a community documentary with poetry throughout Berks County with his National Endowment for the Arts-sponsored Berks Poetry. His intergenerational Scranton Poem Opera staged the varied voices of one community, winning him the Key to the City of Scranton. He was also Poet-In-Residence at Towanda Elementary School.
This program is part of COMMON GROUND: A Community Conversation about Natural Gas and Northeastern PA, a partnership program of Keystone College, Countryside Conservancy, Edward L. Rose Conservancy, North Branch Land Trust, Cabot Oil and Gas, Craig Czury Poetry Project, and Summerhouse Grill.
For more information about Craig Czury, visit www.craigczury.com. Additional information about the Bradford County Historical Society can be found at www.bradfordhistory.com. The Bradford County Historical Society is a recipient agency of the Bradford County United Way.
