Hawona Sullivan Janzen facts for kids
Hawona Sullivan Janzen is an American writer, poet, and performance artist. She lives in Minnesota. Her work often explores big feelings like love, sadness, and hope. She was born in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Career
Hawona Sullivan Janzen's poems have been shared on National Public Radio. She also sings jazz music with a group called the Sonoglyph Collective.
She helps art groups like Forecast Public Art and the Hennepin Theatre Trust. She also manages the art gallery at the University of Minnesota's Urban Research and Outreach Engagement Center. Hawona also organizes a poetry reading series called Literary Witnesses.
In 2017, she took part in a project called Poetry of Resistance and Change. Her poems were shown in a big way on the sides of public buildings. Monica Sheets Larson, also known as Sister Black Press, organized this project. It included hundreds of printed cards and posters with poems from Junauda Petrus and others. The poems were displayed outside the Soap Factory for three weeks. A public event was held, starting with a bike ride led by artists. There were also poetry readings and live printing using a special bicycle printing press.
In 2020, Hawona and Kathy McTavish created a very long performance art piece. It was called A Coming Together: A Performance for Our Time.
Rondo Family Reunion
In 2016, Hawona Sullivan Janzen worked with Minnesota poet Clarence White and photographer Chris Scott. They teamed up with Springboard for the Arts to create a public art project. It was called Rondo Family Reunion.
This project was about the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul. Rondo was a busy Black community from the 1930s. But it was broken apart when Interstate 94 was built in 1955. The highway made many families and businesses move. About one in every eight African Americans in St. Paul lost their home because of the highway.
The three artists met with older people from the community. They wrote down their stories. Then, they put up lawn signs all over the neighborhood. These signs had photos and poems that told the stories of the Rondo community. The McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund helped pay for this project.
