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The Department of English and Communication Arts at 91��Ƶר�� College is thrilled to announce the establishment of the janet jai Memorial Fund for Visual Poetry. The fund has been made possible thanks to an endowment of $150,000 from Richard Krepski of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The fund will support students and faculty at 91��Ƶר�� working within the field of visual poetry, which combines graphic arts and poetic texts. Students in both 91��Ƶר��’s undergraduate English program and graduate creative writing program will be eligible to receive funding.

“We are grateful to Mr. Krepski for his generous gift, which will enable us to carve our niche in an innovative literary genre,” said Elizabeth Knapp, Ph.D., professor of English and creative writing MFA program director at 91��Ƶר�� College.

Krepski established the fund in memory of his late wife, janet jai, a writer, artist and activist who frequently created hybrid works of visual poetry. jai was an early member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and presented her work at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, the Edinburgh and St. Andrews Festivals in Scotland, and numerous venues around Pittsburgh.

Her visual poetry, which jai called “PoemArts,” blended visual arts and text to explore concepts of identity, nature and social justice. A retrospective of jai’s work, titled “Poetry in Vision & Voice,” was recently displayed at the Heinz Memorial Chapel in Pittsburgh.

At 91��Ƶר��, students have numerous opportunities to engage with poetry. The undergraduate English program offers a creative writing concentration and the graduate creative writing MFA program offers a dedicated poetry track. The new fund will allow for more cross-disciplinary work within the humanities.

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