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<br /> About Phillip Shabazz
<br /> As a poet, author, and teaching artist, Phillip Shabazz has built an outstanding, extensive, and respected
<br /> career. His work, which explores issues of community and culture in America, has been acclaimed by the
<br /> media, critics, and audiences across North Carolina. His writing expresses diverse points of view, from
<br /> poems about family and friends challenged by the complexities of life, to narratives that celebrate human
<br /> possibilities.
<br /> Educators have called him, "One of the most inspiring individuals in the arts." In an effort to get students
<br /> excited about creative writing, Shabazz encourages them to be empowered by their own words
<br /> and expression. Teachers have commented, "His methods succeed in showing students how to use poetry as
<br /> a tool of learning and communication. His teaching style is engaging, fun, and direct." The North Carolina
<br /> Arts Council nominated him for the prestigious William C. Friday Fellowship for human relations, praising
<br /> his contributions to arts education—as a blend of magination, experience, and upbeat sensitivity. As writer
<br /> and teacher, Mr. Shabazz has created a series of ongoing creative writing workshops for many which he
<br /> calls "Living Words."
<br /> Artist Statement
<br /> Writing is my key to the mind, my door to the heart, my window to the soul.
<br /> It starts with poetry. i turn words into stories and lyrics without the distraction of television, newsprint,
<br /> video, junk mail, etc. This always strikes me as magical. Writing fills me with a sense of accomplishment
<br /> and integrity, and it proves to be a most agreeable vehicle for expressing artistic vision and possibility. i am
<br /> fascinated by the energy which creative writing gives me, and I've studied it avidly. As a student, I started
<br /> to read and perform my poems as a creative way to fulfill my passions for artistic expression and for
<br /> language. Now those passions have transformed me: I love to write. I love to create. I love to express art. I
<br /> use these outlets as sources for meaningful communication with audiences and students. I write from the
<br /> inside out. I work as deliberate as I can, consciously employing poetic devices and techniques. My muse is
<br /> my project manager. Much of my writing revolves around a fascination with real and imagined experiences
<br /> and the way in which different pieces of information combine to become single coherent poems. The
<br /> concreteness of writing frees my imagination and it "sees" each poem or story into existence.
<br /> I am a lifelong reader of literature great and small. I learned how to write through reading. For me, writing
<br /> by way of reading is what its really all about. I write poems and prose that challenges the reader to think
<br /> about their inner life, and also their outer surroundings. In each piece, I write to understand what my life
<br /> means in this world. My body of work is an attempt to share that experience.
<br /> Teaching Artist
<br /> Mr. Shabazz became Duke University's third Artist-in-Residence at the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black
<br /> Culture. While at Duke, Shabazz was a founding member of Spirit-House, a community service organization.
<br /> During his four-year residency, and with funding from the Siemens, and Mary Duke Biddle Foundation,
<br /> Shabazz organized both a student art collective, and a twice monthly speaker's series which presented local
<br /> and nationally known poets and writers. The series also included lectures by well-known educators from
<br /> area universities and scholars from the National Humanities Center. The residency sought to blend the role
<br /> of the arts in relation to vital social issues. Shabazz conducts creative writing workshops across his home
<br /> state of North Carolina, and has taught at over 400 schools, conferences, and community centers. Currently
<br /> he is a poet-in-the-schools of North Carolina and is affiliated with the NC Arts Council. Prior to this, he was
<br /> on the artist roster with the Durham Arts Council. He has also been a visiting writer at many colleges and
<br /> universities including UNC-Chapel Hill, Eton, Winthrop, Warren Wilson, and the Writers' Series at
<br /> Appalachian State. Shabazz currently lives in Chapel Hill, NC, and continues to reach approximately 12,000
<br /> people annually through his work as a poet, teacher, and writer at the grassroots and in the community at-
<br /> large.
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