Throughout 2017, we are working with our interns to highlight 52 Creatives from the NEPA region. We believe creativity is a broad term that cannot be easily confined within the walls of one simple definition. We want to know what being creative means to you and how you bring that creativity to light.
Katie Wisnosky of Tunkhannock, PA is our 37th #NEPACreative of 2017! She brings creativity to the area through performance poetry.
Seven years ago, Katie Wisnosky showed a group of her students the documentary Louder than a Bomb, an award winning feature length documentary about a high school poetry slam competition. The poetry workshops and festivals showcased in the film intrigued these students and they expressed to her how they wanted something similar in their own community. From this intrigue, Breaking Ground Poets was born. Breaking Ground Poets is a nonprofit youth-run organization that hosts open mics, poetry slams, and even takes a team every year to the worlds largest youth international poetry festival, Brave New Voices.
When asked who inspires her, Katie simply responded that she is inspired by all writers and artists. “I have great admiration for their ability to take risks and ask questions,” she also commented. Katie also remarked that her heart belongs to the current movement of contemporary spoken word poets that she has gotten the opportunity to work with over the years through Breaking Ground. “So many people think poetry is dead,” Katie remarked, “but really if they spend time watching poems on Button Poetry or youth speaks – they will see the arts is living and breathing.”
When asked what being creative meant to her, Katie said that being creative is something that is unique to an individual, and that it is intricate and multifaceted. Katie left us with this: “Don’t assume just because a teen has a history or isn’t an A student that they aren’t brilliant. The student in the back seat who only scribbles verses and not notes could easily be the next Chance the Rapper, Jeanann Verlee, or Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
To learn more about Katie, her mission, and Breaking Ground Poets, check her out on Twitter and Facebook.
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