Many years and hundreds of poems written "on the street" reveal fascinating insight into the psyche of people in our communities. This talk will explore the lessons learned by a veteran "street poet" writing poems for other people. Paul Wiegel has been writing on-demand poems as a "street writer" on his manual typewriter for passersby at art galleries, farmers' markets, and festivals for the past eight years. In that time, he has written over 1,500 poems for people on subjects as diverse as doughnuts, reunions, micro-brewed beer, cottages, violins, and women’s flat track roller derby. While he mostly writes for other people on the street, his own poetry has appeared both in print and online including The English Journal, Hummingbird, and Whale Road Review. He is a past winner of Irish Fest’s John Gahagan Poetry Prize, has presented at the Wisconsin Poetry Festival, Untitledtown Book Festival, Central Wisconsin Book Festival, and is yearly demonstrator at ArtStreet in Green Bay and Art Fair Off the Square in Madison. Paul has also been a contributing writer at Wisconsin Public Radio as part of their Wisconsin Life program. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

• published: 06 Nov 2019
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