When William S. Burroughs wrote, "Language is a virus from outer space," he wasn't kidding. By the time I realized some sort of literary bug had its hooks into me something fierce, it was too late. I'd already changed into this creature - who stayed up late drinking coffee, lurking at open-mics, and cramming blank pages with something that went straight from guts to pen, skipping all the other organs in-between.
I thought I knew the cure. I bought a journal. I attended a lecture by Maya Angelou, a couple of poetry slams, and had even seen someone named Frank X Walker signing books at Joseph Beth once. But it wasn't until I stood in the back among a packed-house audience in the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning at a reading featuring the founding members of the Affrilachian Poets, where I felt most welcome in all my creature-ness, and neither the APs nor the Carnegie Center have left me the same since.
My story is not unlike thousands of people who've passed through the doors of what used to be Lexington's original public library. In the tradition of fostering literacy, the Carnegie Center grows writers and literary enthusiasts of every genre and age. It is a hotbed in terms of resources through programming facilitated by beyond-qualified staff and workshop instructors, established authors, veteran writers and literary aficionados.
Over the past 11 years, I've personally attended or given readings and facilitated workshops at the Carnegie Center all of which were free or affordable, and in 2007, I even got married right in Gratz Park, descending down the back steps to vow forever to the one love of my life who doesn't spout ink if I press him too hard (that I know of). With apologies to Burroughs, for those of us who don't mind letting our love for language go viral, the Carnegie Center remains Central Kentucky's mothership.
The Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, industrialist and literacy advocate Andrew Carnegie donated more than $40 million toward the creation of over 1,600 libraries in communities across America. The philanthropic push included funding the 1905 construction of the Neo-Classical building in Lexington's Gratz Park that housed the city's first public library until 1989, when space constraints led it to move to its present downtown location.
After much debate among the community in the early '90s regarding what to do with the historic building, a task force appointed by Mayor Scott Baesler made the decision to keep the building's usage in line with the original funder's mission - thus, The Carnegie Center, a non-profit community center with a focus on lifelong learning, was born. The decision was largely influenced by a handful of academically inclined task force members, including the late education expert Robert Sexton, who understood the changing concept of literacy, said Carnegie Center executive director Janet Isenhour.
"Literacy was being redefined as a lifelong process that operated on a continuum," Isenhour said, "not just a reading vaccination, where you 'got' literacy and then you were done for life."
Today, the organization remains loyal to its original mission, offering diverse community programming for people of various ages, levels of learning and backgrounds. Isenhour points out that the delivery of that mission is evolving, shaped by the continuous input and feedback of the community.
"We've always tried to put into practice what people tell us they need," Isenhour said. "We really appreciate it when people from the community come to us and say, 'I think you all should try this program.'"
The building is open to the community throughout the week, offering spaces to read, write and use the computers. Staff members like to think of the center, which offers about 250 classes and workshops a year, as "the community's living room." Class topics range from standard and specialized writing workshops to computer literacy courses, film classes and instructional workshops on everything from grant writing to blogging. The center also features a number of youth and family engagement programs, literary readings featuring emerging authors from the area, and writing contests. Many programs are free or available on a sliding scale, and the organization's directors emphasize that scholarships are available for all classes. The building is also host to a number of programs with outside ties, including the AmeriCorps VISTA program, which the Carnegie Center manages, and ESL classes run by BCTC.
One of the organization's most intensive programs is the after-school tutoring program, which serves more than 100 students with one-on-one tutoring for an hour a week. Isenhour calls the program, which is where most of the organization's volunteer efforts are channeled, an "intense and rewarding volunteer experience." She explained that this time of year is when a good deal of "rematching" occurs within the program, as a number of volunteers are forced to pull out due to shifts in their schedules.
"We have five kids on the waiting list now," Isenhour said. "Come January, we'll probably have 20 kids on the waiting list."
In January, the organization, which has stepped up its efforts to engage the literary arts in recent years, will expand its focus to include theatrical arts. A new partnership with Balagula Theatre will commence in January, when the two organizations will join forces to present the play "A Woman in Black" at Natasha's (Jan. 10 - 12), with a portion of the proceeds benefitting The Carnegie Center. -
Saraya Brewer