Georgia poet and environmental activist Janisse Ray will present a reading of her work on Wednesday, March 30 at 1 p.m., in the library at the Georgia Highlands College Cartersville campus in celebration of National Community College Poetry Day.
Ray is best known for her autobiography, "The Ecology of a Cracker Childhood," which won the American Book Award, the Southeastern Booksellers Award for Nonfiction, the Southern Environmental Law Center Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. The reading will be followed by a book-signing.
Ray's appearance is sponsored by Green Highlands, Phi Theta Kappa and Keep Bartow Beautiful. Because she is an avid environmentalist interested in the relationship among land use, personal responsibility and the health of our rivers and streams, she will be participating in a college project on the Rome and Cartersville GHC campuses to add cautions to storm drains that flow into the Coosa River. The initiative to paint stencils that read, "Dump no waste; drains to the Coosa River," will involve the program sponsors as well as the Georgia Highlands College Writers' Collaborative and the Coosa River Basin Initiative.