Gary Glazner is the founder and Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project, (APP). The APP was the recipient of the 2013, Innovations in Alzheimer’s Disease Caregiving Legacy Award and the 2012 MetLife Foundation Creativity and Aging in America Leadership Award. The National Endowment for the Arts listed the APP as a “best practice.” NBC's “Today” show, PBS NewsHour and NPR's “All Things Considered” have featured segments on Glazner’s work. Glazner is the author of Dementia Arts: Celebrating Creativity in Elder Care.
In 2014, Glazner began working in the Arts and Corrections field with his Poetry and Improv program, at the Unit for the Cognitively Impaired, at Fishkill Correctional Facility in upstate New York. In 2016, Glazner designed and co-taught “Creativity in Elder Care,” for the University of Arizona Medical School. In 2014, with support from the NEA and the Poetry Foundation, Glazner launched “Poetry for Life,” an intergenerational program that brings students of all ages together with people living with memory loss to perform and create poetry. Glazner was the poet-in-residence at the International Arts and Health Conference in Australia in 2015 and 2018. He was co-recipient of the International Leadership in Arts and Health Award in 2018. The APP has provided programming in 35 states and internationally in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Poland South Korea and Turkey.
Performance, Spoken Word and Slam Poetry
For his senior project at Sonoma State University, Glazner formed the “Glass Egg Ensemble,” to work in collaboration with choreographers, dancers, musicians and laser light artists to create multi-media performances. This was Glazner’s first experience in building community around art.
In 1990, working with Poetry Slam founder and Chicago poet Marc Smith, Glazner produced the first National Poetry Slam, held in San Francisco, California. That first event which had 10 poets from 3 cities participate, has now grown to over 400 poets from 72 cities. This annual event ended after 27years.
This work placed Glazner at the center of the grass-roots resurgence of poetry as spoken performance. In Poetry Slams, poets often address social issues of race, sexuality and cultural identity. As a pioneer in the world of Poetry Slam, Glazner helped to create a platform to give voice for people marginalized by society. This work as poet/organizer informed Glazner’s understanding of the power and potential of artist as activist.
In 1980, as part of a poetry class, Glazner read the book GENESIS ANGELS: The Saga of Lew Welch and the Beat Generation, by Aram Saroyan. Reading this work led to Glazner’s studying the poetry of Lew Welch, including his essay, “How I Work as a Poet.” This essay was a major influence on Glazner’s ideas of making poetry of use to one’s community and the concept of applied poetics, which are detailed in Glazner’s books, How to Make a Living as a Poet and How to Make a Life as a Poet.
A class in experimental music included a workshop with the composer Lou Harrison and being introduced to the compositional techniques of John Cage, including the concept of “found text.” He took a class in psychobiology, which sparked a life-long interest in behavioral neuroscience.
Glazner uses all of these elements on a daily basis in his work with people living with Alzheimer’s disease, and related dementia. Glazner graduated with a B.A. in Expressive Arts with an emphasis in poetry from Sonoma State University, in 1982.
Image: Precision Poetry Drill Team
Pet Parade, Santa Fe, New Mexico