Kari Gunter-Seymour is the immediate past Poet Laureate of Ohio and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship recipient. Her award-winning poetry collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press, 2024), Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), and A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila Na Gig Editions, 2020). A ninth generation Appalachian, she is the executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project and editor of its anthology series, Women Speak. Read more.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and how did that event change you?
Seventeen years ago, I created the Women of Appalachia Project (WOAP). It started out as a local event and has since grown into a non-profit 501(c)(3) arts organization that addresses discrimination directed at women from the Appalachian region by encouraging participation from women writers and artists of diverse backgrounds, ages, and experiences to come together, to embrace the stereotype, to show the whole woman, beyond the superficial factors that people use to judge her.
Six years into the project I created an anthology, Women Speak (published by Shelia-Na-Gig Editions), which is now an integral part of WOAP’s mission. This year’s volume is the eleventh in the series. Hundreds of women have participated from throughout nearly every Appalachian state, as well as those from across the country with strong generational Appalachian roots. The WOAP Facebook page has 59,000+ followers from all over the world. I arrange performance opportunities at which contributors present their work at readings throughout Ohio, West Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.
WOAP is in the self-esteem business. Art, poetry, story, song –– I use them all to share truths about the Appalachian region and build strong bonds with our communities and with each other. This confluence of ideas and inspirations have helped to empower me and so many other regional female artists. The sisterhood created has sustained me through my worst of times and brought to me unmeasurable joy through networking and fellowship. I am a much better poet and a much better human being for having had these many years with so many amazing women. It is my dearest hope that it has enriched each one of them in some way as well.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
Let me start by saying, I am service-oriented. I am happiest when I am busy interacting with and showcasing others. During my three terms as Ohio’s Poet Laureate I completed over six hundred activities and events. This is not to brag, but to illustrate my commitment. I had the honor of working with people throughout Ohio and beyond –– from teens to elders, beginning writers to the well-seasoned, including those incarcerated and those in recovery. When I do a reading or present a writing exercise, I always build in time for participants to share their own writing. No exaggeration, I have heard and read some of the finest poetry available on the planet, much of it written by poets who have not yet been published. One simply cannot immerse oneself among so many amazing hearts and intellects without being deeply moved. I have been so lucky to be allowed to do the work I do, and believe me, I get back as much, or more, than I give.
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
I get reminded quite often that I am not an academic poet and I’m okay with that. However, I am an academic. I have a BFA in graphic arts and an MA in commercial photography. I am a retired instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. People wonder how in the world I became a poet.
Part of it was sheer will. I needed healing and poetry does that –– listening, reading, writing poetry does something to the chemicals in my brain. It’s like a laying on of hands for me when I find, hear, or write certain poems, I feel anointed.
I am photographer and graphic artist by trade. What is a photo –– a moment in time, which is a poem. What is the basis of graphic design –– to arrange information in a clear, concise manner so the reader can read information in a specific order, a specific hierarchy, which is a poem. Journalism teaches us the value of every single word, again, a poem.
Author photo: Courtesy of author
Side bar image: Pixabay/Edar
