SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) – At a little market in downtown Syracuse, many came together in order to support local art and poetry.
On Tuesday night, the Write Out organization hosted people in the community in order to listen to the work of Kofi Antwi, an up-and-coming poet who resides in the Syracuse area, and to work on their own creative skills.
This was the second installment of the Small Press Reading Series, a weekly creative writing event throughout the month of October.
Write Out was created roughly one year ago by its director, Jacob Gedetsis. Gedetsis grew up in Ohio going to after-school programs. It wasn’t until he was going for his masters that Godetsis had the idea to take people from the university and incorporate them into the community.
“I wanted to find ways to bring creative writing off the university hill and into the community and to connect university students with local after-school spaces to do creative writing,” Gedetsis said about bringing university members into the writing community.
A few rows worth of people attended the event at the Salt City Market on South Salina Street.
Antwi began the night by addressing the crowd. The poet then read some of his unfinished work before continuing on with his own publication Tidal Wave.
Tidal Wave was released in June of 2020 as a collection of poems written by Antwi, many of which he says relate to the social injustices he has witnessed throughout his lifetime.
“It reminds me of the social injustice that goes on in Staten Island, New York, and no matter how far I travel that these issues are still prevalent,” Antwi stated when describing his poems.
Antwi completed his readings and afterwards the room was set up where people could work on their own creative writing.
Some of Antwi’s work were available for reference as well as some other general prompts. People sat at tables writing in many ways, whether it was with a pen and pencil, a computer, or even a typewriter.
Next week’s guest will be author Iain Haley Pollock at the Salt City Market.
