Residency Artist - Creative Writing

Wendy McVicker

5 Sunnyside Dr.
Athens, OH  45701-1919
Phone: (740) 594-4609
Email: wendymcvicker@gmail.com

I am a creative writer, working mostly with poetry. Language is all around us, and the English language is particularly rich. What I love is to reveal this gift to language users of all ages and varieties of experience. With younger students, I delight in introducing the word and sound play of poetry: a game all can play. In a recent middle school residency, we looked at classical Chinese poetry and painting, and modern poetry inspired by this work, in preparation for the students' retreat in a state park. I have also had the privilege of working with hospitalized veterans, and older adults in a community arts setting, exploring their rich treasures of memory through drawing as well as writing. In all cases, and at all ages, we use poetry, the language of our deepest knowledge, of our hearts and dreams, to explore the world around and wtihin us.

This past year I have been performing with musician Emily Prince, as the duo another language altogether. A group of Advanced Typography students made posters of some of my poems: these were on display in the Dayton Metro Library, and will be traveling to other venues in 2011 and 2012. I am always interested in the discoveries that arise from this kind of collaborative exploration. I love to encourage across-the-arts collaboration in the classroom setting as well. I continue to write and publish poems, most recently in Riverwind, and in the anthology Red Thread, Gold Thread (ed. Alan Cohen).

I have been writing all of my life, but until I had children most of my adult writing was academic or epistolary. My BA is in Philosophy. I have studied with poets Wayne Dodd and John Haines at Ohio University. I have been publishing poems in small journals since 1986, and working with writers of all ages in a variety of settings, since 1988.