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LISTEN: José Faus Responds To School Shootings With Poetry

Laura Spencer
/
KCUR

 Artist José Faus, a native of Bogota, Colombia, is widely known for his colorful community murals in the Kansas City area, but he's also a poet, writer and playwright, and a founding member of the Latino Writers Collective.

In 2012, after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, Faus wanted to find a way to "talk about what happened there." During a writing workshop at an elementary school, he was inspired by children's nursery rhymes.  

"I'm a visual artist as well, so the idea of assemblage, of taking disparate elements and putting them together to create something new immediately came to me," says Faus. "And this is what I came up with."

All of our WORD readings, including bonus tracks by some poets, are archived on SoundCloud

Kansas City is known for its style of jazz, influenced by the blues, as the home of Walt Disney’s first animation studio and the headquarters of Hallmark Cards. As one of KCUR’s arts reporters, I want people here to know a wide range of arts and culture stories from across the metropolitan area. I take listeners behind the scenes and introduce them to emerging artists and organizations, as well as keep up with established institutions. Send me an email at lauras@kcur.org or follow me on Twitter @lauraspencer.
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