Ode to the Land Workshop with Shonda Buchanan

Altadena Poets Laureate invite you to attend the first “Ode to the Land“ workshop at the Altadena Main Library Community. “Ode to the Land” is a public poetry project that will pair senior citizens (55+) and high school students for poetry workshops and offer two public poetry readings focused on place, home, and odes in iconic natural and cultural settings in Altadena. The workshops will feature guest poets who have expertise in presenting the ode as well as other lyric and narrative forms of poetry.

Join us for a Poets Laureate event.

This program is made possible by the Altadena Library Foundation and the Friends of the Altadena Library.
This event is made possible by the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Mellon Foundation.
This event is supported by Poets & Writers.

This workshop will be led by Shonda Buchanan.

About the presenter
Pushcart Prize nominee and Oxfam Ambassador, Shonda Buchanan’s work focuses on the intersections of race, identity, landscape and language and meets this Kalamazoo, Mich., native’s mission to inspire, educate and heal. A USC Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities Fellow and City of Los Angeles (COLA) Department of Cultural Affairs Master Artist Fellow, Shonda Buchanan is the author of five books, including the award-winning memoir, "Black Indian," which was chosen by PBS NewsHour as a "top 20 books to read" to learn about institutional racism.

Education specialist for the U.S. Department of State and president of Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center’s Board of Trustees, Shonda teaches fiction and poetry in Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. She is also a writer instructor in First Year Seminar and senior lecturer in African American Studies at her alma mater, Loyola Marymount University. A descendant of the Mende African nation of Sierra Leone, Coharie, Choctaw and Eastern Band Cherokee and Europeans, Shonda lives and writes on Tongva and Chumash lands. For more information, visit www.shondabuchanan.com.