INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
Originally developed to bring oral storytelling and The Spoken Word to a wide range of audiences across the state of Pennsylvania, the EIGHT PROGRAMS described below were created, developed and managed by American INSIGHT's founder and chairman, Margaret Chew Barringer under the name of the AMERICAN POETRY CENTER (see below)
In 2005, the organization changed its name to American INSIGHT as it prepared to reach new audiences through the latest advances in all-digital historic archival research, video production techniques, and Internet-based delivery systems. The nonprofit institution has had both its 501 (c) 3 status in Pennsylvania and its Federal EIN since 1985
As a producer, director, videographer, photographer and digital video editor, Margaret Chew Barringer supervises all legal, technical and artistic aspects of the production process
Barringer has served on the Board of Advisors to American Poetry Review, Pew Fellowships' Regional Council, Mayor's Cultural Advisory Committee for Philadelphia, and Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts in Pennsylvania
As a filmmaker, Barringer has received commissions to produce films about local and internationally known artists, a number of which have had extended runs at regional and national museums and galleries. Her poems have appeared in eight journals and two anthologies in America, and in four journals and three anthologies in Russia, reaching over 25 million people
AMERICAN POETRY CENTER (1983-2004)
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY BUILDING
SOVIET WRITERS UNION
In 1986, Margaret Chew Barringer negotiated a seven-year Reciprocal Exchange Agreement with the Soviet Writers Union. During a series of 14 visits she accompanied over 100 poets, editors, and scholars from Russia and the United States in this first-ever exchange, including Richard Wilbur, John Ashbery, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Andrei Voznesensky. Special receptions and readings were regularly held at the United States Embassies in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Governor’s Mansion in Harrisburg and the National Press Club in Washington, DC
CULTURAL ENRICHMENT
POETRY MONTH
Under a series of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts-initiated grants, the American Poetry Center (APC) developed, coordinated and promoted a month-long statewide annual celebration of the Literary Arts across Pennsylvania for ten years, featuring over 1,500 poets and writers at over 900 events in more than 100 cities. In 1996, the American Poetry Center's original POETRY MONTH in Pennsylvania officially became NATIONAL POETRY MONTH coordinated by the Academy of American Poets in New York
SYMPOSIA
APC produced a series of annual symposia in Philadelphia that attracted national and international media attention, including substantial coverage in all regional newspapers, The New York Times and Radio Free Europe. Participating writers included E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee, Joseph Brodsky, Susan Sontag, Galway Kinnell, Allen Ginsberg, Grace Paley, Etheridge Knight,
Gerald Stern, Czeslaw Milosz, R.D. Laing, Amiri Baraka, Robert Bly, Dennis Brutus, John Ciardi, Marge Piercy, Amy Clampitt, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Haas, Stanley Kunitz, Cynthia Ozick, Donald Hall and Yevgheny Yevtushenko
ARTS ADVOCACY AND PROMOTION
THE SPOKEN WORD
APC sponsored dozens of poetry readings in Philadelphia featuring personal appearances by such notable figures as Russia's Andrei Voznesensky, Noble Laureates Czeslaw Milosz and Derek Walcott and Canada’s Gaston Miron
PENNSYLVANIA WRITERS COLLECTION
Created in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the collection stocked over 300 titles by Pennsylvania poets and writers. American Poetry Center also distributed 25,000 free, bi-annual Literary Network Newsletters with book reviews, calendar of literary events and featured articles on publishing and fundraising for literary artists to universities, community centers and libraries across the state
LITERARY ARTS HOTLINE
American Poetry Center coordinated this statewide, toll-free cultural resource (1-800-ALLMUSE) for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, annually fielding thousands of calls from across the Commonwealth on literary events listings, book titles and resources available to poets and writers in the state of Pennsylvania
YOUTH AND EDUCATION
YOUNG VOICES OF PENNSYLVANIA
A statewide poetry contest for schoolchildren, presented in collaboration with the Pennsylvania State Library system and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Judged annually by school teachers, librarians and nationally-known poets, over 50,000 children participated in the Young Voices Poetry Contest, news of which reached more than 12 million people per year through extensive media coverage
GREAT VOICES OF POETRY EXTRAVAGANZA
An annual theatrical event featuring winners of the statewide Young Voices Poetry Contest and other award-winning Pennsylvania school students who shared the stage with Philadelphia corporate CEOs, government officials, artists, athletes, reporters and media moguls, all delivering their favorite poems
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