Vermont Humanities

Shanta Lee

Man giving a talk in a bike shop
Speakers Bureau

Shanta Lee GanderShanta Lee’s work has appeared in PRISM, ITERANT Literary Magazine, Palette Poetry, BLAVITY, DAME Magazine, The Crisis Magazine, and the Ms. Magazine Blog. Shanta Lee is the 2020 recipient of the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts and was named as Diode Editions’ full-length book contest winner for her debut poetry compilation, GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak in Woke Tongues. She is an MFA candidate in Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has an MBA from the University of Hartford and an undergraduate degree in Women, Gender and Sexuality from Trinity College. To see Shanta Lee’s photography and writing, visit Shantalee.com.

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    • Phone: (802) 275-8152

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Talks by Shanta Lee

Painting of Lucy Terry Prince

Bearing Witness and the Endurance of Voice

By Vermont Humanities | February 10, 2020

Lucy Terry Prince was born in Africa, where she was kidnapped by slave traders and transported to Rhode Island. While still enslaved in 1746, she wrote “Bars Fight,” the oldest known poem by an African American. Prince later regained her freedom and moved to Vermont with her husband. Shanta Lee illustrates Prince’s importance as a poet and orator, and as one unafraid to fight for her rights within the landscape of early Vermont, New England, and America.

Posted in Speaker Talk, Speakers Bureau, Vermont History

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Vermont Humanities*** February 10, 2020

Poet Sarah Audsley in a black dress in front of a large gray rock.

Poet Sarah Audsley joined us at the Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park for Words in the Woods.

Group of students walking on a boardwalk into the woods

Humanities Camps are filled with reading and writing projects, field trips, and outdoor activities.

Rep. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin with students in front of a schoolbus

We won a 2020 Schwartz Prize for best public humanities programming in the U.S. for Vermont Reads 2019: “March: Book One.”

Group on tour in snowy Burlington

We supported Historic New England’s “More than a Market” project that explored the experiences of new Americans through food markets.

Woman raising her hand during a public event

Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.