April 2022–October 2022
This exhibition explores the poetry and spoken word performances of influential International Poetry Forum (IPF) writers in the 1960s and 1970s, and the ways in which their activist-informed creative practices contributed to social change to hep reshape the country's understanding of what it means to be an engaged citizen. The writers who participated in the IPF during these decades include a diverse lineup of challenging, thought-provoking, and radical speakers. Participants such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Octavio Paz, Daniel Berrigan, Adrienne Rich, Kurt Vonnegut, Lucille Clifton, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Adonis, and Ned O'Gorman were an essential part of transformative thinking about race, gender, and class during this era.
The IPF was founded and driven by the visionary poet and writer Dr. Samuel Hazo, who brought an impressive and world-renowned slate of poets, creatives, and performers to Pittsburgh from 1966–2009. The exhibition features the rich materials of the IPF archive housed at Carlow University.
Grant funded by CIC Humanities for the Public Good, this exhibition, public programming, and archive project is student-led and driven by Carlow's Department of Art, Communication and English, Grace Library, and the Social Justice Institutes, and our community partner, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. A digital version of the exhibition is available on the Carlow University Art Gallery's Google Arts & Culture page.
The IPF archive contains video recordings, audio recordings, newspapers, posters, and other ephemera highlighting the rich local history of the IPF, spanning from 1966–2009. The Forum's director, Dr. Sam Hazo, had a vision—that poetry had its greatest impact when spoken aloud. It was for this reason that the IPF invited speakers from across the globe to read poetry in a spoken word format in order to celebrate the power and potential of the art form. In 2023, Samuel Hazo announced the revival of the IPF.
Special thanks to:
Grant Team:
Student Interns:
Special thanks to students in EN 102: Introduction to Writing and Research about Literature and AR 735: Art History and Curatorial Studies seminar.