Ozark poet Ruth Weinstein will be this week's feature for Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea, 110 Central Ave. The regular open mic session for all poets will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by Weinstein's performance at 7 p.m. and another open mic session. Admission is free and open to all ages.
For more than 40 years, Weinstein and her husband have been organic gardeners on their 40-acre farm in the Ozark Mountains near Marshall. Her experience as an organic farmer is a major topic of her poetry. "I've been writing poetry all my life, but just recently started sharing it," she said in a news release.
In 2015, with the musical help of her husband and friends, Weinstein recorded 20 of her poems for a CD titled "Exhausted Gardener Napping on a Bed of Swiss Chard," which will be available Wednesday night. Her poem "Bickering Over Potatoes" was published this January in the online version of Poetica Magazine and will appear in the print version this summer. The poem was a finalist in the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Prize competition sponsored by Poetica Press. In 2015 she won the Eat!-Write! fellowship at the Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs and was a writer-in-residence there for two weeks last October.
Occasionally, Weinstein can be found performing her poetry at Vino's Brew Pub in Little Rock.
In addition to poetry, Weinstein writes short fiction and personal essays about her place in the garden, the natural world and social relationships. She is also a visual artist working in the mediums of textiles, watercolor and acrylics.
Email [email protected] for more information about Wednesday Night Poetry.
Entertainment on 02/09/2016