Evening Upstairs: The Role of Place in Poetry
Date: Thu, June 14th 2012
Additional Time Info: 7:00 p.m.
External Link: Event Website
Location: McCracken County Public Library
Poetry Readings From Kentucky's Poet Laureate
"The Role of Place in Poetry"
presented by Kentucky Poet Laureate
Maureen Morehead
It is generally known that Southern writers anchor their work in place. Though she is not a native of Kentucky, having spent her childhood in central Illinois, Maureen Morehead's longtime residency in the Commonwealth has resulted in poetry that is filled with the images and stories of her adopted state. As a Kentucky writer, she is part of a large, strong literary tradition that has always celebrated the state's natural beauty and looked out for its best interests. In this talk, Morehead will discuss how living in and learning about Kentucky has influenced and shaped her poems. She will read from her work to illustrate that influence.
Maureen Morehead has published three collections of poetry: "In a Yellow Room" (Sulgrave Press, 1990), "A Sense of Time Left" (Larkspur Press, 2003) and "The Melancholy Teacher" (Larkspur Press, 2010). A fourth book, "Our Brothers' War" (Sulgrave Press, 1993) with Pat Carr is a collection of poems by Morehead and stories by Carr based on the lives of Kentucky women during the Civil War. A fifth book, "Late August Blues: The Daylily Poems", is forthcoming from Larkspur.
In addition to the collections, individual poems have appeared in magazines including America, The American Poetry Review, The American Voice, The Black Warrior Review, California Quarterly, The Greensboro Review, The Iowa Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The Louisville Review, The Southern Poetry Review, Poet and Critic, and Poetry Magazine.
Morehead's work is featured in "The Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State (University of Kentucky Press, 2005), "Conversations with Kentucky Writers II" (University of Kentucky Press, 1999) and "Kentucky Voices: A Bicentennial Celebration of Kentucky Writing" (Kentucky Arts Councel, 1992). Her writings also appeared in "Place Gives Rise to Spirit: Writers on Louisville" (Publishers Printers, 2000) and "Savory Memories" (University of Kentucky Press, 1998).
She has won fellowships for her poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She has given numerous readings of her work and continues to do so in her position as a poetry faculty member in Spalding University's brief-residency MFA Program in Writing.
Presented by the Friends of the Library
Co-sponsored by The Kentucky Humanities Council
June 14, 2012
7:00 pm
In the Library meeting room
All programs are free and open to the public in the upstairs community room.
