September 7th, 2011
We certainly met poet Samantha Thornhill as well, who also helped us greatly in our NYC poetry research.
She was the young poetess Bob Holman had suggested us to invite to Hungary last year when we - together with Kunsthalle Budapest - organized the 3rd Budapest Slam at the venue A38. Samantha then managed to truly thrill the audience, and half a year later she came back to Budapest for a short visit, got herself another successful poetry performance and had a chance to check out a Hungarian slam event.
So we caught her in NY to ask about her opinion and impressions of the Hungarian slam scene and her overall view of performance poetry today.
While the video interview is being edited, you can read her official biography here:
Sprouted from a family of educators, Samantha Thornhill is an international poet. She travels the globe performing her poetry to audiences of all stripes and walks of life, regularly performing at universities, schools, and festival stages from Budapest to Brooklyn—the borough where she resides.
Writing since age 8, Samantha went on to receive her Bachelors in creative writing from Florida State University, where she joined BackTalk! Poetry Troupe, a guild that nurtured Samantha into the performer she is today. Upon graduation at FSU, Samantha received a full fellowship from the University of Virginia where she received her Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in poetry.
Samantha has since built a life for herself in New York City, where for the past six years she has been teaching poetry to actors-in-training at the Juilliard School. Regularly, she is contracted to teach creative writing workshops to senior citizens for Poets & Writers. She also serves as writer in residence at the Bronx Academy of Letters where she teaches creative writing seminars and manages a talented group of teens in producing their school newspaper.
Samantha also educates youth through her writing. In 2007, Simon & Schuster published her middle grade chapter book, Everybody Hates School Presentations, based on the hit show Everybody Hates Chris. In 2010, her ode about the late folk legend Odetta was published by Scholastic in the form of a picture book, which received starred reviews in School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Booklist.
Her individual poems have been featured in the following publications: Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Poets and Artists Magazine, Cimarron Review, The Louisville Review, Two Review, African American Review and Faultline.
Samantha is grateful to the organizations that have been most instrumental in nurturing her artistic and spiritual growth: Cave Canem, Soul Mountain, Hedgebrook, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Jerome Foundation, which enabled her to spend three months in her homeland, Trinidad & Tobago to work on her young adult novel, Seventeen Seasons, forthcoming from Penguin/Putnam.
We certainly met poet Samantha Thornhill as well, who also helped us greatly in our NYC poetry research.
She was the young poetess Bob Holman had suggested us to invite to Hungary last year when we - together with Kunsthalle Budapest - organized the 3rd Budapest Slam at the venue A38. Samantha then managed to truly thrill the audience, and half a year later she came back to Budapest for a short visit, got herself another successful poetry performance and had a chance to check out a Hungarian slam event.
So we caught her in NY to ask about her opinion and impressions of the Hungarian slam scene and her overall view of performance poetry today.
While the video interview is being edited, you can read her official biography here:
Sprouted from a family of educators, Samantha Thornhill is an international poet. She travels the globe performing her poetry to audiences of all stripes and walks of life, regularly performing at universities, schools, and festival stages from Budapest to Brooklyn—the borough where she resides.
Writing since age 8, Samantha went on to receive her Bachelors in creative writing from Florida State University, where she joined BackTalk! Poetry Troupe, a guild that nurtured Samantha into the performer she is today. Upon graduation at FSU, Samantha received a full fellowship from the University of Virginia where she received her Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in poetry.
Samantha has since built a life for herself in New York City, where for the past six years she has been teaching poetry to actors-in-training at the Juilliard School. Regularly, she is contracted to teach creative writing workshops to senior citizens for Poets & Writers. She also serves as writer in residence at the Bronx Academy of Letters where she teaches creative writing seminars and manages a talented group of teens in producing their school newspaper.
Samantha also educates youth through her writing. In 2007, Simon & Schuster published her middle grade chapter book, Everybody Hates School Presentations, based on the hit show Everybody Hates Chris. In 2010, her ode about the late folk legend Odetta was published by Scholastic in the form of a picture book, which received starred reviews in School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Booklist.
Her individual poems have been featured in the following publications: Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Poets and Artists Magazine, Cimarron Review, The Louisville Review, Two Review, African American Review and Faultline.
Samantha is grateful to the organizations that have been most instrumental in nurturing her artistic and spiritual growth: Cave Canem, Soul Mountain, Hedgebrook, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Jerome Foundation, which enabled her to spend three months in her homeland, Trinidad & Tobago to work on her young adult novel, Seventeen Seasons, forthcoming from Penguin/Putnam.
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