This post is a re-blog of an original post by Mountain Word on July 4, 2011.  Click here to read more about Jeremy on Esse Diem: Easter Sunday, 2010 and Poetic Ruminations from a Small Town.  I attended this reading, and saw what you see on this video, live.  I am pleased to have the chance to share this reading with you.  Something about hearing the spoken word by the poet himself is simply magical.

I wish you could have been there.

Affrilachian poet Jeremy Paden reads “Ars Poetica,” his take on the art of poetry. Paden is an assistant professor of Spanish at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY. His poems have been published in the Atlanta Review, Borderlands and elsewhere.

This is the first of a series of video excerpts MountainWord is editing from a two-hour reading by Affrilachian poets and open mic spoken word artists at Bluegrass Cafe on the final day of FestivALL 2011 in Charleston, W.Va. The event was put together by poet and organizer Crystal Good.