Former Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson and Caryn at the 2010 Governor’s Arts Awards
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., is the 2009-2013 Poet Laureate of Kansas. Her career as a poet, fiction and non-fiction writer, teacher, mentor, and facilitator focuses on how literature can help us live more meaningful and vibrant lives. As founder of Transformative Language Arts, she also values social and personal transformation through the spoken, written and sung word.
Mirriam-Goldberg is the author or editor of more than 15 books, including in recent years:
- To the Stars, Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices,Mammoth Publications.
- Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems, editor, from the 150 Kansas Poem project, Woodley Press.
- The Divorce Girl, a novel, Ice Cube Press.
- An Endless Skyway: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate, co-edited with Marilyn L. Taylor, Denise Low and Walter Bargen, Ice Cube Press
- Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Each Other, non-fiction, Potamac Press.
- Landed (poetry, Mammoth Publications)
- The Sky Begins At Your Feet (a memoir on cancer, community and ecology, Ice Cube Press)
- My Tree Called Life: Writing and Living with Serious Illness editor, Turning Point of Kansas City
- The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, editor, TLA Press.
Mirriam-Goldberg’s poetry and prose has been published in over 50 literary
journals and anthologies. Founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, where she teaches in the low-residency Individualized MA Program, Mirriam-Goldberg has extensive experience facilitating writing workshops for many populations, and giving readings and presentations. She also offers writing and singing workshops and performances with singer-songwriter Kelley Hunt through their business, Brave Voice.
Mirriam-Goldberg received her Ph.D. and MA from the University of Kansas (poetry, women’s studies, mythology), and she is certified in grassroots organizing from the Midwest Academy, and poetry therapy from the National Federation for Biblio/Poetry Therapy. She is the recipient of Kansas Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Rocky Mountain National Park artist-in-residency, the City of Lawrence Phoenix Award, and other honors.
Mirriam-Goldberg’s Poet Laureate projects include the following:
- Poetry Across Kansas – Reading and Writing Our Way Home
- Readings, Presentations and Workshops
- 150 Kansas Poems to celebrate Kansas’s Susquicentennial in 2011, followed by the Kansas renga in 2012.
- Special Poetry Month Activities, which include, for 2011, the Kansas Daily Poem In Your Pocket, the To the Stars Poetry Contests, and more.
- Everyday Magic, a soulful daily blog on the writing life, and Bodies and Voices, a weekly column on writing and yoga.
- Poet Laureati: A National Convergence of Poets Laureate
- An Endless Skyway: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate
- Write From Your Life Columns and Podcasts, including High Plains Public Radio shows.
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