Mary E WeemsMary Weems is the eldest daughter of four, the mama of one daughter, Michelle E. Weems, and the blessed-to-be-with-him wife/partner of James Amie. Proud to have been raised by her mama, and to be from a poor, working-class background, Mary started wrting poems when she was thirteen to learn to love herself. This took a while. Since then, her creative spirit-eye has turned more and more outward to include her take on the African American experience from a personal and political perspective as well as the universal complexities of being a woman and anyone alive in the world.

Mary E. Weems is a poet, playwright, author, performer, and imagination-intellect theorist. She has been the Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights from April 2007 to April 2009. Recently she co-edited Cleveland Poetry Scenes: A Panorama & Anthology, with Nina Freedlander Gibans and Larry Smith (Bottom Dog Press, 2008), and her books include Poetry Power (Silvermoon Press, 2003), her educational monograph Public Education and the Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth (Peter Lang, 2003), and Working Hard for the Money: America�s Working Poor in Stories, Poems, and Photos (Bottom Dog Press, 2002), which she co-edited with Larry Smith.

Mary Weems is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education and Allied Studies at John Carroll University. She has her doctorate and also works as a language-artist and education consultant in middle school, and high school classrooms, university settings and other venues through her business BRINGING WORD TO LIFE.

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