Donor Spotlight: Meet Hiram Larew!

Hiram Larew is the Founder of Poetry X Hunger, an initiative that encourages poets to address the cause of preventing and eliminating hunger. Combining his professional expertise within Department of Agriculture and U.S. Agency for International Development and his passion for poetry, Hiram has worked with the Creative Suitland team to establish Poetry & Produce and several other initiatives.  He received multiple nominations for his poetry, including the nationally renowned Pushcart Prize.  His fifth collection has just been published by Atmosphere Press (www.HiramLarewPoetry.com). And, his work has been supported by the United Nations, the Maryland State Arts Council and the Prince George’s Arts and Humanities Council. In addition, Hiram’s poems are published in journals and books in the U.S. and around the world.  This summer, Hiram sat down via Zoom with Do Good Institute Intern Kurt Turnier and Director of Development Toni Rae Salmi. Like his poetry, Hiram takes us on an adventure through his connection to Creative Suitland and the importance of ongoing support to an emerging artistic pillar within the Southern Prince George’s County community.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us how you first got involved with Joe’s Movement Emporium and Creative Suitland.

I had lived in Upper Marlboro for a long time, and when using the Metro, I would hop on and hop off at the Suitland Metro stop. I’m not exactly sure how I learned about or tuned into the fact the (former Hunter Memorial Ame Church) building was to be turned into an art center, but I know when I did, I was very, very interested. The Suitland area on Silver Hill Road has a lot of talent and community activism to promote, and yet, it did not have a place to do that. So, I began to tune in pretty quickly once it had been announced that the (arts) center was going to be there. It was shortly thereafter when I met some of the team, including Brooke (Kidd, Executive Director of Joe’s Movement Emporium and Creative Suitland), Malachi (Robinson, Creative Suitland’s Site Director), and Kyle (Reeder, Creative Suitland’s Creative Placemaking Coordinator, and former Board Member). Kyle was particularly important in calling together the community to get their input to hear about what they wanted the center to be, and I sat in a couple of those meetings.  

Tell us about some of the people you’ve met while involved with Joe’s and Creative Suitland.

While my professional work had more to do with hunger issues, for years I have written poetry. My interest in Creative Suitland was having poetry readings or poetry included in some of the programming. Malachi and Britt (Barbour, Creative Suitland’s former Program Director) have been very open to working with me; through them, I met a lot of community members. I also sat in on some community planning sessions and met some of the area’s key movers and shakers. They often reminded us that we wanted to keep the focus on activities that bolster, strengthen, and address the needs of the community. In addition, through these experiences, I have met other poets, visual artists, dancers, and others in the arts. I think for me, the special outreach has been to the visual artists. I don’t know that community quite as well as I should. So, the fact that Creative Suitland has been a magnet for the visual artist, not only for studio space but also exhibit space, has meant that I have been able to interact and visit with them. 

What has surprised you most about working with Creative Suitland?

It was discovering the vitality of the arts community in South Prince Georges County. Creative Suitland is responding to a long-standing need. Now that it is available, people are coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of the opportunity. It makes me wonder where Creative Suitland could be in ten years. It has already proven itself as a facility that was needed and that it can add to the economic vitality, the cultural vitality, and certainly the artistic vitality of the area. What will it do in ten years with donors’ assistance and community and County support? It really is a wonder to imagine what it could be, but I only see good things happening with it because it’s been needed for so long. We have heard of the term “food desert.” (Greater Suitland has) been kind of an arts desert, and that’s not because there were no artists. There are a lot of artists in the community. They just didn’t have a spot to convene, meet, celebrate, and that is what Creative Suitland has been able to provide. 

What are some of your favorite memories at Creative Suitland? 

Besides the great memory of being present for Creative Suitland’s Grand Opening festivities, I have been to three of this year’s Poetry and Produce Sundays, and during that time, I have seen the attendance grow. Also, Before COVID, I co-produced a world premiere program at Creative Suitland called “Voices at Woodlawn,” which is about a slave community at an historic estate in Arlington, Virginia, on land once owned by George Washington. A group of us went to Woodlawn for a day. As a result, we created poetry, music, and artwork in response to that untold, basically unknown tragedy of 90 slaves serving nine whites at Woodlawn. That program has now gone on to the West Coast, the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, and widely in the D.C. area. We got our wings at Creative Suitland almost two years ago. Beyond that, I had a hand in creating the Poetry Poster Project, where I framed poems by poets in the County as artwork. As a result, poems of five African American poets and one American Indian poet were displayed all over the county and at the Maryland House of Delegates in Annapolis. We then displayed them in the gallery at Creative Suitland and had a celebratory reading there. 

Why should someone donate to Creative Suitland?

In these days and times, with the country's concerns, problems, tragedies, strife, it’s just important to invest in positive initiatives like the pursuits of the arts and expressions through them, and Creative Suitland is so full of potential.  This Arts Center should be something that all of us feel is a privilege, not only a necessity, to be able to contribute in whatever way, through talent, through time, through treasure, whatever means. While Creative Suitland has “Suitland” in its title, it is really addressing a need across all of South County that has never really been met. It’s not just something that people from the Suitland area should be supporting because it is one of the few, if not only, places of its ilk that celebrates the arts in that region.

What do you wish other people knew about Creative Suitland?

Creative Suitland is a place that people should tune into now because it is extremely exciting, and in five years, people are going to look back and say, “I helped Creative Suitland do that.” I predict great things for the organization, and I think people should want to be involved with it at its start as it gets off the ground.  I don’t want Creative Suitland to be a well-kept secret. I want it to be a well-known, celebrated arts center in the area. A place where performers want to perform. A place where artists want to have their work exhibited because it has that positive reputation where it’s a really cool addition to your resume, and you can say that you performed or had artwork exhibited at Creative Suitland. I see that happening over the next few years. It's building that reputation now. And I think it’s going to get there.