Doing something you love is its own reward. But that reward is always sweeter when others recognize the value of your contribution.

I was notified recently that a poetry reading and roundtable conversation radio program I produced and hosted in April 2016 received an Honorable Mention in the 2016 International Association of Audio Information Services (IAAIS) Awards. This project combined two things I love: the power of poetry to move and inspire, and the power of radio to reach people where and when they least expect it.

For the program, which I produced for broadcast on the “Morning Exchange” program on VOICEcorps, the audio reading service for the vision impaired community in Columbus, Ohio, I invited three other poets from around Ohio to share a few of their poems and talk about how they were bitten by the poetry bug. I and fellow Ohio poets Sayuri Ayers, Mark Sebastian Jordan and Kathleen Burgess recorded the one-hour program at the VOICEcorps studios for broadcast during April 2016 – National Poetry Month.

Here is the audio (unedited) of the April 2016 poetry program.  I am grateful to Sayuri, Mark and Kathleen for granting me permission to share their poetry on this platform.