Join us for Poets in the Conversation Room!

Cosponsored with Grace Cavalieri, Maryland’s lOth Poet Laureate, Kymberly Taylor, Editor-in-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine, and St. John’s College. Made possible by The Rowsome Family memorializing St John's Tutor, Nancy Buchanauer and The Maryland State Arts Council.

About the Poets

Kelsey Hennegen (SJC Santa Fe Graduate Institute 2020, SJC Eastern Classics 2021; MFA, Boise State University) believes her best hope for grappling with what it is to be human lies in her work as a poet. As a resident artist with the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, she created a poetry exhibit for the foundation El Zaguan gallery and a chapbook title “To Keep the Name Daughter.” She lives with her husband and infant daughter in Northern Virginia.

Cora Clark (St. John’s College, Annapolis graduate 2021; MFA, John’s Hopkins University) is currently a Junior Lecturer in creative writing at Johns Hopkins.

E.J. Baker (St. John’s College, Annapolis graduate 2021; MFA candidate, University of Maryland) is a Korean American writer living on unceded Piscataway land. His work explores diasporic experience and loss.

About the Poets in the Conversation Room Series

In partnership with Annapolis Home Magazine, St. John’s College presents a series called Poets in the Conversation Room hosted by renowned poet, author, playwright, and tenth Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri.

“Annapolis needs poetry,” says Kymberly Taylor, poet and Editor-In-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine. “It needs this incredible art form that helps us feel things beyond what we hear and read online, on television, and in the news.”

“There couldn’t be a more fitting partnership for the college than Poets in the Conversation Room,” says St. John’s College President Nora Demleitner. “At the college, students spend four years reading and discussing great classical poets – from Homer to Baudelaire. This is a wonderful opportunity to expose them to more modern poetry while also welcoming and engaging the Annapolis community.”

The poetry series is free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Works by the featured poets will be on display at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library and available to purchase at the St. John’s College Bookstore.

“I think it’s going to create a tremendous audience because it’s also entertaining,” says Cavalieri. “Poetry speaks to how we feel and how it is to be alive in this world—and who does not want to hear that?”

*Please note, registration is for estimating attendance; tickets are not required.