News & Media

 

Congratulations to Speak Peace Milwaukee for a wonderful exhibit. Click on this link to visit the exhibit blog featuring a community arts project on display at the Milwaukee Danceworks Gallery. And on Friday, July 6, visit the Milkwaukee War Memorial Center for the closing ceremony and reception. 

The Speak Peace exhibit will open at DePaul University on May 3. The exhibit will be located at the Student Center (Lincoln Park) in the Richardson Library, 103A, 1st floor Haber Lounge.   

The Speak Peace Exhibit has opened at the Alabama State Capital in Montgomery. On Wednesday, April 11, from 2-4 p.m. a reception will be held in the Old Supreme Court Library on the first floor of the State Capital. Public officials will offer opening remarks at 2:15.

The exhibit is presented by the Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the Alabama Department of Youth Services in conjunction with April Is Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month. 

Visit the Youtube station for Chatham's Global Focus Project to see wonderful videos of poets reading during the Speak Peace exhibit's closing night.  

The Speak Peace exhibit is currently open at Chatham University's Art and Design Building Mezzanine. The exhibit will run from March 9-30 and will close with a reading and reception on Friday, March 30 from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. The reading will feature Chatham University students and Speak Peace poets Paula J Lambert and Robert Miltner. 

The local NPR station at Penn State, WPSU, featured a great story about the Speak Peace exhibit at the Bellefonte Art Museum. Click here to listen to the 5-minute story. 

The Speak Peace exhibit had an opening reception January 8 at the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County in Bellefonte, Pa. The exhibit will enjoy a two-month run in Bellefonte, near State College, before it heads to Chatham University in Pittsburgh.  

The Speak Peace exhibit appeared at the University of Arizona Poetry Center in September 2011. Read about the exhibit here or view a video produced by Tucson's local PBS station. 

The Speak Peace exhibit is currently on display at Western Michigan University’s Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Kalamazoo, until August 19. The university is offering several workshops connected with the exhibit, including “Writing in the Art Room,” a class that helps teachers encourage their students to be more expressive through their words and art. Poet Patricia Clark, professor at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, is a guest speaker. Dr. William Charland at the university’s Frostic School of Art notes, “We look forward to Ms. Clark’s insights about the exhibition and the writing process, and value the exhibition as a component of both the summer institute and our master’s program.” 

The Wick Poetry Center attended the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Washington, D.C., from February 2-5. The conference featured the Speak Peace exhibit and a dramatic reading of selected poems from the exhibit. Participants in the dramatic reading included three children from northeast Ohio. This was the first time in AWP’s history that children participated in the conference. Also participating in the dramatic reading were nationally known poets Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux, Long Chu, Bruce Weigl, and Alberto Ríos. “The fact that these students attended the AWP and read with award-winning poets like Ellen Bass and Dorianne Laux is really tremendous,” said David Hassler, director of the Wick Poetry Center. “These kids are charting new territory, and we’re very proud of them.”  

 

Kent State University will honor three Vietnamese guests as part of the Speak Peace exhibit celebration on November 1 at the Kiva auditorium, Kent State University. Also honored will be area veterans returning from a healing and reconciliation tour of Viet Nam. Speakers include poet Maj Ragain; Mr. Tran Song, ARVN air force veteran and re-education camp survivor; Mr. Tam Tien, Viet Cong veteran; Ms. Minh Thai, poet; and the Reverend John Schluep, director, Warrior’s Journey Home. In addition, Hiram College Theatre students will perform a reading of Speak Peace. The program takes place at 7:30 p.m. 

In October Dr. Ed Tick, co-director of Soldier’s Heart, led his tenth journey to Viet Nam with combat veterans seeking reconciliation and healing from the traumas of war. The Vietnamese press reported on his trip, noting Tick’s role in the Speak Peace exhibit and discussing post-traumatic stress disorder and how these journeys have the potential to heal both countries.
  

In the October 4 issue of the Albany Times Union, Dr. Ed Tick discusses his recent trip to Viet Nam, the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans, and how children can help in the healing process by “open[ing] our hearts and help[ing] us tell the truth about war.” 

The Speak Peace exhibit will appear at the International Peace and War Summit at Case Western Reserve University from October 25-30, 2010. The conference unites international experts on peace studies and conflict resolution and features keynote speaker will be Dr. Ed. Tick, author of War and Soul and director of Soldier’s Heart.  

Author Ed Tick, who was instrumental in bringing the Speak Peace children's paintings to the United States, wrote a letter about healing from the trauma of war, which Wick Poetry Center director David Hassler read at the September 16 reception of Speak Peace.

Read the letter from Ed Tick. (PDF - 64K) 

 

Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children’s Paintings made its debut at the Downtown Gallery in Kent, Ohio, on September 7. The exhibit features original poems written by American children, veterans, and established poets in response to Vietnamese children’s paintings of peace and war collected over the last ten years by the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.