Poets Michael Sowder and Maria Melndez will read from their work at the Salt
Lake Public Library Main Branch at 7:00 P.M. on Wednesday, March 21st as part
of the City Art Reading Series.
Maria Melendez has published two collections of poetry: Base Pairs (Swan
Scythe Press, 2001) and How Long She'll Last in This World (University of
Arizona Press, 2006). Her essays and features have appeared in alternative
print venues such as Altar Magazine, Orion Afield, and Isotope, and several of
her essays on arts and activism have been broadcast as part of NPR's American
Democracy Project. She currently serves as Associate Editor for Momotombo
Press, an independent publisher producing works by emerging Latino writers,
and she co-coordinates Poetas y Pintores: Artists Conversing with Verse, a
traveling exhibition of contemporary Latino art and poetry. Her poetry and
fiction have appeared in such magazines as Barrow Street, International
Quarterly, and Ecological Restoration, and she is currently at work on a third
collection of poetry. She received her M.A. in English/Creative Writing from
UC Davis in 2000. From 2000-2003 she was awarded grants from the California
Arts Council in support of her work as writer-in-residence at the U.C. Davis
Arboretum, where she taught environmental writing workshops for the public.
In 2003, Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, appointed her Research
Fellow at the Center for Women's InterCultural Leadership. She currently
lives in Logan, Utah, where she teaches creative writing and literature
courses at Utah State University.
Michael SowderÂs most recent book of poetry, The Empty Boat, was
chosen by Diane Wakoski to win the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize. Nominated for a
Pulitzer Prize, the book was a finalist for the Utah Book Award, and poems
from it were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. The Emtpy Boat is available from
Truman State UP and Amazon. Click here for Diane Wakoski's comments.
Sowder's study of Walt Whitman's poetry, Whitman's Ecstatic Union:
Conversion and Ideology in Leaves of Grass (NY: Routledge, 2005), examines
Leaves of Grass within the context of the antebellum culture of religious
conversion prevalent in nineteenth-century America, reading the ecstatic
experience of conversion as an event that could produce both believers and
heretics. In this context, Whitman's Ecstatic Union interprets Leaves of
Grass as a rhetorical, sermonic performance designed to convert readers into
Whitman's ideal of a "New American Personality."
He is a professor of English at Utah State University.
The event is free and open to the public. City Art is sponsored by the Utah
Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Zoo, Arts, and Parks,
X-mission, and audience donations. The featured reading will be followed by
an open reading.
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Connie Voisine will read from her poems and Marv Hamilton with perform his
Singer/songwriter Marv Hamilton learned to perform on March 14th at 7:00 P.M.
at the Salt Lake Public Library for the City Art reading series.
Connie Voisine was born and raised on the northernmost border between
French-Canada and Maine and received degrees from Yale University, University
of California at Irvine and University of Utah. Now she lives on the
southernmost border of Mexico and New Mexico. Her first book, Cathedral of the
North, won the AWP Award in poetry. Her second book, Dangerous for Girls, was
recently completed. The poems in this manuscript have been published in Slate,
Black Warrior Review, The Georgia Review, and other literary magazines. She
teaches poetry writing in the MFA program at NMSU and lives in Mesilla, New
Mexico, with her husband, writer Rus Bradburd.
Marv Hamilton learned to sing in the back seat of a '47 Buick while his
mother, who sang on the radio in the 30's, and father, a natural
whiskey-drinking baritone, harmonized in the front. Marv picked up his first
guitar in 1973 to play along with Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills,
Nash and Young. He was 24 and a Vietnam vet. In 1988, Marv began to play,
write songs and perform with acoustic trio, "Vuja De". In 2000, Marv released
his debut solo album, "Wing and a Prayer" under his own indie label, "Best Dog
Records". Acoustic blues, ballads, breakup songs and "redrock eco-folk". A
psychotherapist, activist and tree-hugger, Marv is a three-time winner in Salt
Lake's prestigious KRCL/Founder's Title Folk and Bluegrass Performing
Songwriter Showcase. Marv was also a 2001 Kerrville Newfolk Finalist at
Kerrville, Texas. Steve Seskin says, "If you don't feel something when you
listen to Marv, you're probably dead". Susanne Milsaps of Salt Lake's KRCL
91FM and Magpie House Concerts Series chose "Wing and A Prayer" as best local
album of 2000 and says Marv's "the rootsy, earthy, teller of everyman's
story".
Marv's release of his 2d album, The Mind Will Follow, played to a sellout
crowd at the University of Utah in Oct 2006. Of Hamilton, Catalyst magazine
says, "Simply put, he's one hell of a storyteller". Of his new record, the
Salt Lake Tribune says "Hamilton's folk and acoustic blues songs, whether they
be love ballads, political dissections or odes to the mountains where he runs
with his dog, have earned him a reputation as one of Utah's finest
songwriters".
Paul Swensen, in the University of Utah's alumni magazine Continuum, says,
"His songwriting smells of the earth. He has an abiding respect for animals
and wildlife. He writes achingly beautiful love songs"" .
Marv has performed at concerts, coffeehouses, and house concerts, music and
arts festivals, peace rallies, restaurants and celebrations in Utah, Arizona,
Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Massachusetts, and Vancouver, B.C. sharing the stage
with Chuck Pyle, Steve Seskin, Cheryl Wheeler, Dave Alvin, Firefall and other
greats.
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High School writers from across the Salt Lake Valley and beyond will read from
their prose and poetry as part of City ArtÂs High School night at 7:00 P.M. at
the Salt Lake Public LibraryÂs Main Branch on Wednesday, March 7th. Come out
and hear the promise of UtahÂs literary future.
The event is free and open to the public. City Art is sponsored by the Utah
Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Zoo, Arts, and Parks, and
audience donations.
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