Nancy Kangas is a poet, filmmaker, and teaching artist based in Columbus, who often combines written and spoken word with other media. In the 1980s and 90s, she edited Nancy’s Magazine, an intimate mix of poetry, comics, and advice; the full run of this zine was recently selected to be archived in the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library of The Ohio State University. She’s written and performed poetry-theater pieces, including a selection for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, and paired family slides with flash fiction for the online magazine, Ohio Edit. Her poems have appeared books and journals including MAYDAY Magazine, Rattle, and Forklift, Ohio.

For over two decades she has facilitated creative writing workshops with students and teachers, and has collaborated with children and adults in residencies sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council, The National Gallery of Art, The Wexner Center for the Arts, and others. After years of creating poems with very young writers, she co-directed Preschool Poets, a series of animations based on her students’ poems. The films were selected by festivals worldwide, including the New York International Children’s Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film Festival. She is at work on a short documentary film about crying, and a hand drawn animated film about her mother.

Availability

Upon request

O Creek

May I roar like you
crash and be froth
Squeeze through boulders
because I have to
Pool for a while as glass

O creek
Your fierce your fast
your bravado with algae
Your hiss your bash
that low boom

How you shake a life out of finding your bottom

Writing sample courtesy of the teaching artist.