Angela Trudell Vasquez will serve as Madison Public Library’s Poet-in-Residence this spring offering a number of programs for all ages.
During the residency, Vasquez will provide workshops catering to different age groups, including adults, teens, and youth and families, according to a press release from Madison Public Library, and at each workshop, Vasquez will pair up with an artist, dancer or nature educator to provide an interactive exploration that broadens the ways we experience poetry. Workshops will be hosted at various library locations across the city.
“During National Poetry Month, we wanted to celebrate poetry and its abilities to create connection, promote wellness, and share the stories we all have within us,” said Madeleine Kain, Youth Librarian at Madison Public Library, in a statement. “We have always celebrated National Poetry Month as an organization, but this year we saw a way to expand that celebration further into the community in partnership with our amazing Madison Poet Laureate.”
Trudell Vasquez, who goes by Angie, is the City’s seventh poet laureate and first Latina woman to hold the position. In advance of the residency, Trudell Vasquez worked with the library and The Bubbler to offer Poetry Maker Kits available for pickup at the library. Each kit contains art supplies to create a response to Vasquez’s poem, “Tree Friends.”
“I am thrilled to be partnering with the Madison Public Libraries for the Poet-in-Residence program! This binds my love for libraries and books with being in community with patrons and the citizens of Madison,” said Trudell Vasquez in a press release. “When I was young my local library was everything to me. I traveled the world through reading and am happy to be able to give back to this great institution that gave me so much as a child and a young person.”
Trudell Vasquez is a poet, writer, performer, and activist, and a second-and third-generation Mexican-American and the author of the poetry chapbook “In Light, Always Light.” The Madison Common Council voted to appoint her to become the city’s first Latina poet laureate in January of 2020.
