Kari Gunter-Seymour

Kari Gunter-Seymour will be this year’s Learning & Public Practice artist-in-residence for the center’s Pages literacy program, working closely with high school students and teachers from central Ohio. She is the Poet Laureate of Ohio and winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award for her collection A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen. A ninth generation Appalachian, Gunter-Seymour is the founder and executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project (WOAP) and editor of its anthology series, Women Speak. Gunter-Seymour's work was selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey to be included in the PBS American Portrait crowdsourced poem, Remix: For My People. She is a recipient of a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship award. Her poems appear in numerous journals and publications including Verse Daily, Rattle, and The New York Times. Gunter-Seymour has provided poetry workshops to incarcerated teens and adults and women in recovery as well as teaching virtual monthly generative writing workshops. She hosts a seasonal performance series “Spoken & Heard,” featuring poets, writers, and musicians from across the country.