Grantee spotlight: Brick Street Poetry

Brick Street Poetry, an Indiana nonprofit that provides opportunities to connect and 
share individual experiences through poetry, recently used funds from an Indiana Humanities Action Grant to present programming centered on the April 8 total solar eclipse. 

To celebrate the once-in-a-lifetime celestial event, Brick Street Poetry commissioned Hoosier poets to write haikus inspired by NASA images of eclipses. The program featured the poets’ works in four Indiana communities along the path of totality: Greencastle, Vincennes, Martinsville and New Harmony. As part of this Hidden Sun project, each town hosted poets reading their haikus, and most of the towns decorated their streets with banners displaying the images and haikus. 

Indiana Humanities grant funds specifically supported the Greencastle program, held on March 13 at DePauw University’s Thompson Recital Hall. Brick Street Poetry partnered with the Greencastle Arts Council to bring several of the Hidden Sun poets to campus. Taking part in the program were Katy Didden, Ruthelen Burns, Kevin Mckelvey, Adam Henze, Melinda Dubbs, Eugene Gloria, Phoenix Cole, Rosaleen Crowley, Alex Komives, Yiran Zhao, Alessandra Lynch, Alejandro Puga, Thomas Kneeland and Joe Heithaus. Joining them was Indiana’s first poet laureate, Joyce Brinkman, who serves as Brick Street Poetry’s executive director.  

The poets read their haikus, accompanied by the NASA images and live music performed by Eric Edberg, Teagan Faran, Micah Layne, Leo Sussman and Iona Wagner. During a thought-provoking Q&A session, the diverse audience of community members and DePauw students dug into the poetry and music, and they explored the fascinating science behind eclipses.  

Banners featuring eclipse images and several of the haikus presented at the DePauw reading will be on display on the streets of downtown Greencastle through the end of April, which is National Poetry Month.  

“Indiana Humanities has been such an important supporter of Brick Street Poetry, and we so greatly appreciate them,” said Brick Street Poetry executive director Brinkman. “These four programs would not have been as strong and high quality as they are without their support.”   

Indiana Humanities’ Action Grants support projects that help people learn new information, consider different perspectives, share ideas and understand one another better. Learn more about them and our other funding opportunities by visiting our grants page.