Brian Daldorph News Today

Brian Daldorph taught creative writing at the Douglas County Jail for 20 years until the COVID-19 pandemic ended the class, now he teaches a class of housed and unhoused people in Lawrence.

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Starting this week, “poets, rappers, songwriters and dreamers” will all have a chance to grow as writers at Lawrences DARE Center for the Homeless under th

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The visitors to the Community Building put down their yoga mats around the perimeter of the gym, and on top of that they put their blankets and pillows. Many ha

Before COVID, David Hann, of Lawrence, would occasionally spend hours at the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka poring over microfiche archives in search

summary Brian Daldorph first entered the Douglas County Jail classroom in Lawrence, Kansas, to teach a writing class on Christmas Eve 2001. His last class at the jail for the foreseeable future was mid-March 2020, right before the COVID-19 lockdown; the virus is taking a heavy toll in confined communities like nursing homes and prisons. Words Is a Powerful Thing is Daldorph’s record of teaching at the jail for the two decades between 2001 and 2020, showing how the lives of everyone i...

Mon, 05/17/2021 LAWRENCE – After the COVID-19 pandemic broke Brian Daldorphs 20-year streak of teaching a weekly class at Douglas County Jail, the University of Kansas senior lecturer in English hopes to work with inmates again someday soon. The book is part-memoir about his teaching experience at the jail, part-inmate anthology and also includes a survey of major incarcerated writers, including Malcolm X and Jimmy Santiago Baca. Daldorph has published several books of poetry, including “Ic...

/ Brian Daldorph outside the Douglas County Jail where hes volunteered to teach poetry for 20 years. For 20 years, English professor Brian Daldorph has taught Douglas County Jail inmates poetry. Hes compiled some of their works in his new book, "Words Is A Powerful Thing." Brian Daldorph is a poet and English professor at the University of Kansas. But for 20 years, he’s also spent one afternoon a week teaching poetry to the inmates of the Douglas County Jail. “I’ve always thought that wr...

Although the author of "Kansas Poems" grew up in England, he finds his new home state of Kansas fascinating. Enough so that he wrote a whole book of poetry about it. “It’s a very diverse state,” said Brian Daldorph. “There are urban areas and rural areas too. There are huge spaces in America.” "Kansas Poems" meanders through place and time. It focuses on the people and events that make the Sunflower State unique. Sometimes it travels to a lake or a quiet city street; other times, it...