User:Krabas3/Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg (b. 1959) is an American poet and prose writer, founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, and honored as the third Poet Laureate of Kansas (2009-2012). A faculty member at Goddard College in the Individualized MA program, Mirriam-Goldberg teaches interdisciplinary studies, focusing on the transformative potential of the written, spoken and sung word. She is also a songwriter listed with B.M.I., and a facilitator of community writing workshops, including writing and singing workshops with rhythm and blues singer Kelley Hunt, who she's been performing and co-writing songs with since 2006.

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1. Biography: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg was born December 4, 1959 in Brooklyn, NY, the daughter of Hugh Melvyn Goldberg (1939-2003) and Barbara Prusak (1941- ). She lived her first eight years in the Flat Bush area of Brooklyn before moving with her family to Manalapan, NJ. She attended Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ, earning an AA in Creative Writing and beginning her journalism career through stringing for local newspapers and reporting the news on the college radio station. In January of 1979, she moved to Columbia, MO to attend the University of Missouri with plans to complete a journalism degree. Her journalism led her to political activism with various campus groups, and her activism along with a history professor, David Thelen, catalyzed her to instead get a degree in History, focusing on labor history. Her undergraduate thesis was a study of the St. Louis chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women.

Although she didn't complete the requirements for her BA until 1985, she moved to Kansas City, MO. in 1981 to work for the Kansas City Labor Beacon for three months before being fired. She then went to the Missouri Commission on Human Rights in Kansas City to file a sex discrimination complaint, but discovering that the agency had an opening for an intake officer, she decided to instead apply for that position, which she received. She worked at the agency for eight months while also volunteering for the Citizen Labor Energy Coalition, a national coalition of community and labor groups working on energy issues. In 1982, she left the agency to coordinate the newly-formed Missouri Statewide Coalition of Energy, which ran out of funding within a year. Mirriam-Goldberg then received funding from a benefactor to do political organizing for the Citizen Labor Energy Coalition. In 1982, she also attended the Midwest Academy organizing intensive in Chicago. She also became involved with the bioregional movement and attended the Ozark Area Community Congress in 1982.

In 1983, Mirriam-Goldberg moved to Lawrence, KS to be with her then-boyfriend and current husband, Ken Lassman. She soon began work as coordinator for a coalition of community service organizations after giving energy conservation workshops throughout the community as part of the Kansas Area Watershed Council, another bioregional group. In 1985, she married Ken Lassman and left the coalition to attend the University of Kansas, where she first completed her BA (during which time she worked for a marketing firm), then a MA in Creative Writing (1988) and a PhD in English with specialties in mythology, women's studies and poetry (1995). She also had three children, Daniel Lassman (b. 1989), Natalie Lassman (b. 1992) and Forest Lassman (b. 1995).

Mirriam-Goldberg taught at the University of Kansas as a graduate student or adjunct faculty from 1986-1995, Haskell Indian National University from 1995-96, Friends University in 1996, and Goddard College from 1996 to the present. At Goddard, she first taught in the BAMA low-residency program, and then the Individualized MA program. In 2000, she founded the Transformative Language Arts concentration, a MA program in writing, singing, storytelling and other ways of using the language arts for social change and personal growth. She also founded the Power of Words conference in 2003, held annually at the college since that time, and she organized the first six conferences. The conference is now a project of the Transformative Language Arts Network. She co-founded the Transformative Language Arts Network, a not-for-profit organization, with a group of students, alumni and others in 2005.

2. Publications: Mirriam-Goldberg is the author or editor of ten books, including poetry, memoir and anthologies. Additionally, her poetry and prose have been published in over 60 literary journals, anthologies, websites and blogs. 2.1 Poetry •	Landed (Mammoth Publications, 2009), which includes a CD; •	Animals in the House (Woodley Press, 2004); •	Reading the Body (a chapbook, Mammoth Publications, 2004); •	Lot's Wife (Woodley Press, 2000). 2.2 Memoir and creative non-fiction •	The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community and Coming Home to the Body (Ice Cube Press, 2009) •	Write Where You Are: How to Use Writing To Make Sense Of Your Life (Free Spirit Publications, 1999) •	Sandra Cisneros: Writer An Activist (Enslow Press, 1998) 2.3 Books edited •	My Tree Called Life: Writing And Living Through Serious Illness (Turning Point of Kansas City in partnership with Mammoth Publications) •	The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, co-edited with Janet Tallman (TLA Press, 2007) •	A Circle Of Women, A Circle Of Words (Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority in partnership with Mammoth Publications) 3. Awards Mirriam-Goldberg's awards include the following: •	Midwest Booksellers Convention: Best Pick, 2009 (for The Sky Begins At Your Feet) •	Poet Laureate of Kansas, appointed by Governor Kathleen Sebelius, 2009 - 2012 •	Kansas Arts Fellowship in Poetry 2006-08, Kansas Arts Commission (funded by National Endowment 	for the Arts) for sustained excellence in poetry, Mar., 2006. •	Artist-in-Residence (poetry), Rocky Mountain National Park, 2005. •	Morris Morrison Education Award, National Association for Poetry Therapy, April, 2005. •	Phoenix Award for Artistic Achievement, City of Lawrence, KS., Oct., 2004. •	Best Book for Teens 2000, New York Public Library, 2000 (for Write Where You Are) •	Top Best 10 Books of 2000, Kansas City Star, Dec., 2000 (for Lot’s Wife) •	Finalist, University of Wisconsin Poetry Series, Dec., 1999. •	Finalist, Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Contest, Sept., 1997. •	Finalist, Helicon Nine Marianne Moore Poetry Contest, Jan., 1997. •	Outstanding Faculty (one of seven honored university-wide), awarded by K.U. Lady Jayhawks, Feb., 1994. •	Kansa Days Poetry Competition, Winfield, Ks., June, 1993. •	Poetry Grand Slam Champion, Lawrence, KS., Dec., 1992.Poetry Slam Champion, Lawrence, KS., Sept., 1992. •	Outstanding Instructor, English Department, University of Kansas, May, 1991. •	Cincinnati Poetry Review, First Place, April, 1991. •	William Herbert Carruth Memorial Poetry Contest, University of Kansas, first place, May, 1986; second place, May, 1991.

4. Activism: Mirriam-Goldberg has been an activist in the bioregional movement since the early 1980s, and she helped found the Kansas Area Watershed Council in 1982 (http://KAWCouncil.org), and the Continental Bioregional Congress in 1984 (http://bioregional-congress.org). She was the main organizer for the 2002 Continental Bioregional Congress on the Prairie, and for dozens of KAW Council events. She also was on the organizing team for the first Continental Bioregional Congress in Missouri in 1984, the Prairie Biome Congress in 1988, and the Continental Bioregional Congresses for at Earthaven Ecovillage in 2005 in North Carolina and for 2009 at The Farm in Summertown, TN. She served as editor of Konza, a KAW Council publication, from 1982-1995, and she has written widely for many publications, including Home: A Bioregional Reader (New Society Publishers, 1988) and Permaculture Activist. She served on coordinating and vision councils for the bioregional movement for many years in the 1980s and again from 2000-2010. With Ken Lassman and the Kansas Area Watershed Council, she also was the lead organizer in helping resurrect the bioregional congresses in 2000 after five years of inactivity.

Related to bioregional organizing, Mirriam-Goldberg has been involved in Kansas campaigns. She was the main organizer of a campaign to successfully get Rep. Jim Slattery in 1982 to vote for energy conservation legislation, and she has served on many campaigns for city and county officials. With her husband, Ken Lassman, and Ozzie and Retta Backus, she organized the Franklin-Douglas County Coalition of Concerned Citizens in 2000, which brought together over 300 farmers, activists, Native Americans, history buffs and environmentalists to fight the Kansas Department of Transportation on a proposed route for Highway 59 which would have destroyed native prairies, pristine woodlands, endangered species of plants, historic tracks from the Sante Fe trail and Native American sites for a new highway. The coalition won what Mirriam-Goldberg calls “a half victory,” which allowed the new highway to begin being built, but alongside the existing highway instead of one mile east of it.

5. Transformative Language Arts: Mirriam-Goldberg founded Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College in 2000, the first college program focused on using the written, spoken and sung word for social and personal transformation. The program, part of the Individualized MA Program, brings together non-traditional students (most students are in their 30s-50s) to study how creative writing, singing and songwriting, storytelling, spoken word performance and other ways of using the language arts can be used for community building, spiritual development, health and healing, activism and more. The program also emphasizes right livelihood: the Buddhist term for making a living according to one's gifts, challenges and community needs. Since the program began, it has graduated over 50 students, who are now often making most or all of their living through leading workshops, offering consulting or coaching, working as educators or organizers or artists-in-residence.

Mirriam-Goldberg founded the Power of Words conference in 2003, which brings together those who resonate with TLA to learn about right livelihood, narrative medicine, engaged spirituality and social transformation. Keynote speakers over the years have included Grace Paley, David Abram, Julia Alvarez, Greg Greenway, Dovie Thomason, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Kelley Hunt, Rick Jarow, Allison Adele Hedge Coke, Gail Rosen, Nehassaiu DeGannes, Cheryl Savageau, Kathleen Adams and Katherine Towler.

Transformative Language Arts has now spread beyond the college with the formation of the not-for-profit TLA Network, which is staffed by Callid and Kristina Keefe-Perry and run by a council, which includes Mirriam-Goldberg. The TLA Network now also organizes the Power of Words conference and sells The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader, co-edited by Mirriam-Goldberg and Janet Tallman.

6. References: 6.1 - Interview with Mirriam-Goldberg, June 3, 2010 6.2 -- http://Kansaspoets.org, http://arts.ks.gov/poet_laureate/mirriam-goldberg.shtml, http://www.permacultureactivist.net/, and external links listed below 7. External links •	Mirriam-Goldberg's website and blog: http://CarynMirriamGoldberg.com and http://CarynMirriamGoldberg.wordpress.com •	http://www.goddard.edu/carynmirriamgoldberg •	http://bravevoice.com •	http://TLANetwork.org •	http://bioregional-congress.org