Even through the challenges of the pandemic, Penn State MFA grad and poet Abby Minor has unearthed creative ways to fulfill the mission of the organization she founded and directs, Ridgelines Language Arts, a Centre County nonprofit that brings language arts programming to lower-income and underprivileged groups. Ridgelines proclaims its mission at the top of its webpage: “We believe that brave, healthy individuals and just social conditions are sustained by the reflection, honesty, pleasure, and intimacy fostered by the study of language arts.”

Recently, Abby and fellow MFA grad Julie Swarstad Johnston have teamed up on a Ridgelines poetry library project, which Minor says “will help juvenile detention center residents get through tough times, pandemic-related or otherwise.” State College Magazine recently published an article detailing the project, entitled “Opening Doors,” noting that “by creating a contemporary poetry library, Ridgelines hopes to give Bellefonte juvenile detention center residents a creative outlet.” (Read the full article here.)

A recent update from Ridgelines leaders to supporters:

The 2020 Being Heard Window Visits booklet is now available! This special book features poems by Centre Crest nursing home residents covering everything from pandemic life on “lockdown” and elegies for friends to memories of haying in Julian and sneaking cigarettes in the garage. 2020 Being Heard booklets are free for Ridgelines donors as supplies last….(And if you’re not a donor yet, you can easily become one!)

Although we didn’t get to celebrate the 2020 Being Heard poems in person like we usually do, we’re grateful to Ridgelines volunteer Jonathan Bojan for creating this thoughtful video of the 2019 Being Heard booklet reading and release party. Please enjoy it, and we hope we’ll get to gather again like this before too many equinoxes go by!

We also want to remind you that there’s still a little room to register for The Heartwork of Poetry, a series of digital workshops for women-identifying central Pennsylvanians that starts April 7th. Teaching Poet Tanaya Winder invites participants of all levels to join her for reflective writing prompts to help rediscover and strengthen their inner passion and voice.

Whether you read Window Visits poems, dive into the heartwork of poetry, or continue your own practice, we hope you’ll enjoy some nourishing reading and writing this spring.

Sincerely,

The Ridgelines Crew

Abby Minor, Founding Director & Programming Coordinator
Jennifer Hwozdek, Outreach & Fundraising Coordinator
Christine Tyler, Board President
Casey Wiley, Board Secretary
Leah Poole Osowski, Board Treasurer
Carolyne Meehan, Board Member
Katie O’Hara-Krebs, Board Member