Renee Good was a graduate of the Old Dominion University’s (ODU) Creative Writing program. While she was a student there she wrote the award winning poem that you can hear read in the video at the top of this article titled “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
ODU English Professor Heather Weddington gave remembrances of Good as a student, saying that “Renee was kind and generous, and really smart.” It was Weddington’s first year teaching there and so the everything was a bit of an “experiment” but “if [she] could have asked for a ringer, in that class, it would have been [Good], because her whole face lit up.”
The day of events which included the memorial at the ODU Spirit Rock, a planned march and finally poetry and music at Elation Brewing was organized by ODU Professor Drew Lopenzina. Lopenzina is a professor of English literature at Old Dominion University and told me that “there’s a lot of people carrying grief, and people wanted to feel like they were doing something.” So with some other people he decided to start a fundraiser for an endowed Renee Good Trouble Award. The poetry award will be focused on social justice work.
Once the award is funded they will have going to use a local non-profit to administer it. ODU is not affiliated with the award, which… is interesting.
You can support the award at the GoFundMe here.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/good-trouble-renee-good-poetry-award-for-peaceful-protest
I am working on a photo book which will have interviews, poems, and short essays about the cause that Good died for - which 50% of the proceeds will go to this award. If you would like to submit a poem, a short essay or some other sort of written piece you can contact me at ZDRoberts at gmail.com with the subject line “Photo book.”
