November 9, 2017

Voices from Inside: Elms College to host special poetry reading

REGIONAL
Staff report

(IObserve photo/courtesy of Elms College)

CHICOPEE — The Blue House writers’ center at College of Our Lady of the Elms will host a special reading by Voices from Inside workshop participants at 1:25 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, in Berchmans Hall.

This event is free and open to the public.

Voices from Inside offers workshops for girls and women who are at risk for incarceration. The program also makes a difference in the lives of incarcerated women by helping them to find their voices in creative writing workshops.

VFI also brings program participants into the community for conversations, presentations, and performances to share their writing with the community. For this event, writers from VFI workshops will visit Elms College to give a reading.

“It really empowers women to believe they have something to say, that they have the power of their voice, that they can come together and write, that they are creative,” said coordinator Gretchen Krull in a June 2015 interview with WWLP-22News.

“It’s taught me what I say does matter, no matter what someone else thinks,” said Lisa Peck, one of the women from Voices from Inside, in a February 2016 interview with The Daily Hampshire Gazette.