Award-Winning Poets to Appear at MCC Center Campus for 'Day of Poetry,' Music

Lunch-goers craving a little iambic pentameter with their meal need look no further than the Skylight Café at Macomb Community College, which will play host to A Day of Poetry this week.

Featuring original poetry by local and national artists, live music and an open mic opportunity, the event will take place from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30, at the Skylight Café, located in Building P on MCC's Center Campus in Clinton Township.

The event will feature several award-winning poets, including Warren native Jim Daniels, Detroiters Joyce Jenkins and M.L. Liebler, and the Coyote Monk Poetry Band featuring Grammy-winning Eminem producer and bassist Steve King and Blue Room guitarist Charlie Palazzola.

• Jim Daniels is a professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of a collection of stories, Trigger Man: More Tales from the Motor City and Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry.  He is the recipient of numerous poetry awards including the Pushcart Prize winner (2000), the Brittingham Poetry Prize and the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. 
• Joyce Jenkins is the editor and publisher of Poetry Flash and the author of Portal and Joy Road.  She is a recipient of the American Book Award, PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Lifetime Achievement Award, National Poetry Association’s  Distinguished Service to Poets & Poetry Award and the Berkeley Poetry Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.
• M. L. Liebler is an internationally known and widely published Detroit poet, university professor, literary arts activist and arts organizer, and the author of 13 books including the award-winning Wide Awake in Someone Else's Dream. He was recently selected as Best Detroit Poet by the Detroit Free Press and DetroitMetro Times. Liebler is the founding director of both the National Writer's Voice Project in Detroit and the Springfed Arts: Metro Detroit Writers Literary Arts Organization.

Macomb County poets Clark Iverson, Michael Dec, Jennifer Smyth Debellis, Steven Gulvezan, Cassandra Swiderski, Susan Sheiner, Nicole Castle-Kelly and Macomb Community College creative writing students will also take part.

The event will also be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Oct. 30 in the Hub Cafeteria in Building K on MCC'S South Campus in Warren.