Cultural Placemaking Through the Arts - Matt Wolf

Annotation Matt Wolf is a poet who is originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Wolf also works at the Bethlehem Public Library. In this interview, Wolf talks about his own creative journey as he has developed his poetry. He describes leaving the area for a period of time to move to San Francisco, California, and about the role that his writing played as he transitioned back to Bethlehem. Wolf describes the value of art on a personal, community, and societal level. He discusses the importance of exposing children, particularly from poor urban communities, to art, and other changes he would like to see in the local arts community. Wolf describes the artistic community in the Lehigh Valley at length, and about the values of support, collaboration, and inclusion that he sees defining that community. This interview is part of a series of interviews conducted by Lehigh University in collaboration with area artists Doug Roysdon (Mock Turtle Marionette Theater), Anna Russell, and Avi Setton. These interviews were supported in part by the Lehigh University Mellon Digital Humanities Initiative. An oral history interview is an act of memory and hence both highly selective and highly subjective. While it accurately reflects what a narrator remembers (or chooses to tell) of his or her experience and viewpoints, it may not accurately represent what actually transpired or what another person may have experienced. As such users should subject interviews to the same degree of critical scrutiny they would any other historical source.