Life As An Emerging Poet Part 2

June 6, 2012, by

Here is Part 2 of our story, Life As An Emerging Poet. On Monday, we posted Part 1 featuring an interview with Glenn Shaheen. Poets Glenn Shaheen and Lauren Berry will give a reading from their work on Thursday, June 7th, 7 pm at Brazos Bookstore. For more information, visit www.brazosbookstore.com

Lauren Berry, who received her MFA from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, was a National Poetry Series winner in 2009 for her first collection of poetry, The Lifting Dress. Her book was selected by Terrance Hayes and published by Penguin. Among the many eminent names that Lauren lists in her acknowledgements page, we are proud that Inprint is the first! Lauren was the recipient of the Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry and served as poetry editor of Gulf Coast, the nationally renowned literary journal published by the graduate students in the UH CWP. We are happy to have her back in Houston after a year teaching in Wisconsin, and were able to catch up with her this week.

Inprint:  Can you tell us what you are doing now, career-wise?

Lauren: Right now I have the pleasure of teaching twelfth grade English and ballet at YES Prep North Central. Our campus is a charter school with a drive to get low-income students in Houston into college with the expectation that they will return to our beloved city and devote themselves to better serving its community. YES is an acronym for Youth Engaged in Service, a commitment which informs much of the work that we do. In the fall, I will start my third year with the school. Continue reading