AFCEA Chapter VP To Serve Veterans With New Poetry Workshop Project

Mattie Quesenberry Smith has always pursued her passions. From receiving bachelor’s degrees in biology and English and creative writing to becoming Virginia’s poet laureate about a week before defending her dissertation for a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction, Smith seems always to find herself at the intersection of science and literature—right where she wants to be.

Now she’s adding something new to her plate. Smith has recently been awarded the Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellowship, which will grant $50,000 to help fund her newest endeavor: the Veterans Poetry Project.

Four years ago, Smith became a member of AFCEA, and now she serves as the Rockbridge Shenandoah Chapter’s executive vice president. She first heard of AFCEA at Virginia Military Institute, where she currently teaches writing and rhetoric. While she doesn’t have a military background, she said she was drawn to AFCEA because it’s an organization that utilizes integrative approaches to problem-solving, which aligns with her Ph.D. research.

Through her work with AFCEA and poetry reading events she has attended as the poet laureate of Virginia, Smith has met U.S. military veterans who are passionate about poetry. One poet in particular, Wayne David Hubbard, approached Smith with an idea he came up with after discovering a dearth of veteran poetry at the Library of Congress.

Hubbard is the treasurer of the Poetry Society of Virginia and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who started writing in Iraq.

“Writing was always my voice, whether I realized it or not,” Hubbard said. “I wasn't very talkative during my Marine Corps days, and I definitely was not talkative during the years [after] I got out, but I could always pick up a pen, and whatever I was feeling or thinking at the time would be available through that medium.”

He said he knew there had to be more veterans like himself who turned to creative writing as an outlet for complex emotions, so when he met Smith at a poetry event, he pitched his idea of creating a series of poetry workshops for veterans.

After applying for the fellowship and receiving the award, Hubbard and Smith’s “Perseverance and Resilience: Supporting Veterans Through Poetry” project officially took off.

Hubbard said he loves the theme they chose for the program because perseverance and resilience are such “fundamental ingredients of military life, and then also veteran life.”

The program consists of writing workshops, a poetry contest and an anthology that will feature pieces submitted for the contest and written during the workshops. Smith said she’s hoping to schedule three workshops in each of the 10 regions of Virginia. The first one is set for August 23 in Stafford, Virginia.

As someone who finds joy in discovering new writers’ talents, Smith said she’s excited to serve those who have served the country in a nontraditional way and provide them a space to express themselves creatively.

“At the end of the day, I love to write poetry,” Smith said. “And people don't necessarily see how it connects to what they're doing, but it really does in so many ways. And for some veterans, they will have a way to connect their storytelling through poetry.”

For anyone who is hesitant to read or write poetry, Smith said she wants to emphasize that poetry isn’t always meant to be “understood”; it’s more about the emotions the writing evokes.

Hubbard said for him, writing is a way to “take these really big life moments and challenges and evolutions, and to compress it into a snapshot or a photograph,” and he hopes participants will be able to both “celebrate and commiserate” their pivotal experiences.

The Perseverance & Resilience Edward W. Lull Memorial Contest is open for submissions until 11:59 EST on September 15. Winners of the contest and participants in the workshops will see their work published in an anthology next summer.

Smith, Hubbard and a few other poets are planning to facilitate most of the workshops, but Smith said she’s looking for more veteran poets who would be interested in leading some. Additionally, Smith is searching for people who would volunteer to read poetry at the November awards ceremony that will conclude this year’s program.

“It’s really a privilege to bring this around full circle and to be someone who's benefited from poetry and loves it, and to make that accessible for others,” Hubbard said.