Contact: Public Relations
(863) 680-4118

Florida Southern hosts Tampa-based
Irritable Tribe of Poets

LAKELAND, Fla. (March 6, 2002) - The Florida Southern College English and music departments will present The Irritable Tribe of Poets March 20 at 8 p.m. in the Eleanor Searle Drawing Room on the FSC campus.

The Irritable Tribe of Poets, a Tampa-based music and spoken word ensemble, is featured monthly at King Corona Cigars in Ybor City and appears at other Tampa Bay area venues. The band of well-known Tampa area musicians performs an eclectic mix of reggae, funk, world music, and jazz. According to drummer Jon Priest, the largely improvised music defies categorization, since "every style of music is fair game," and the poets are as diverse as the musicians.

The Irritable Tribe features a varying line-up of poets and musicians. For the FSC performance, the band includes drummer Jon Priest, bass player Philip Booth, guitarist Joel Lisi, and percussionist Jim Beckwith.

The featured poets include Rhonda J. Nelson, Bradley Morewood, and Phillis McEwen. Nelson's poems are available in two collections, "The Undertow" and "Shadows & Light," and on two CDs, "Empty Town" and "Live at the St. Mark's Poetry Project." She is a two-time recipient of the Hillsborough County Emerging Artist Award and has received a Florida Division of Cultural Affairs Fellowship. Morewood has performed his poems with world-famous tabla player Vijay Ghate and with Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He has been featured at Bay Area venues such as Skipper's Smokehouse and at more exotic locations including St. Petersburg, Russia. McEwen is a poet and performance artist. She is a co-founder of the Black Madonna Artists Collective, Poetry Editor of The Florida Humanities Council's magazine "The Forum," artist in residence at the Atlantic Colony for the Arts in Seaside, and a member of Cave Canem, a North American Black poets' colony founded by Toi Derricotte.

The group encourages audience members to read their own poetry, with or without musical accompaniment.

The event features a coffeehouse format, and is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. For further information, please contact Bernard Quetchenbach at 863-680-4221 or at bquetchenbach@flsouthern.edu.

About Florida Southern College
Florida Southern is a four-year, private, co-educational liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The college offers more than 40 undergraduate majors and a master of business administration degree accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Located in Lakeland, Fla., the college is home to the largest, single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world.

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