Phil Asaph, named Cortland County’s first Poet Laureate in 2026, will be giving a poetry reading and writer’s talk followed by a Q&A session. This first event in a series of 4 seminars with Phil is focused on the education of a writer. Join us for a celebration of writing, poetry, and the English language!

When: June 25 | 11am-1pm
Where: YWCA
Cost: $10 members | $40 guests
Register today: https://tinyurl.com/sf8ny38s

More about Phil:

Poet, educator, meditation instructor, and Cortland County’s first poet laureate, Philip Asaph has been in love with poetry since childhood. As a student, he received scholarships and fellowships to Eckerd College, Bucknell University, and NYU, where he studied under some of America’s most prestigious poets and earned his MFA. As a teacher, he taught poetry, creative writing, and public performance for 20 years at The Long Island High School for the Gifted and Talented in the Arts and at numerous other schools and colleges before making Cortland his home ten years ago. His poetry has been described as “tough and tender, playfully serious, and almost always accessible.” His work has been published in journals here and abroad, including Poetry, Tampa Review, and The Humanist. Philip is also a well-known meditation instructor in the region and at the Cortland YWCA and is currently completing a self-training manual for meditation and a collection of poems entitled Here at the Heart of Western Civ.

Other seminars in this series:

Public Speaking/Sharing Your Work—July 23
Publishing in America Now—August 27
Building Relationships with Other Writers—September 24