For Immediate Release
Contact:
City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong(a)yahoo.com
Utah Poet Laureate Lance Larsen and Nevada Poet Shaun
Griffin to read at City Art
Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch
210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City UT 84111
Wednesday November 7th 7:00—9:00 P.M.
Utah’s
new Poet Laureate Lance Larsen and Nevada Poet Shaun Griffin will read from
their work on November 7th at the Salt Lake City Public Library at 7:00 P.M. as
part of the City Art Reading Series.
Lance Larsen’s fourth collection of poems, Genius Loci, will be published in late
2012 by University of Tampa Press. His earlier collections include Backyard Alchemy (2009), In All Their Animal Brilliance (2005),
and Erasable Walls (1998). He
holds a PhD from the University of Houston. His work appears widely, in
such venues as Georgia Review, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, River
Styx, Orion, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best American Poetry 2009, Poetry
Daily, and elsewhere. His nonfiction has twice made the Notable Essay
list in Best American Essays. He is currently working on Seventeen Ways to Float, a collection of
essays about place, family, and memory which won 1st place in the 2011 Utah
Original Writing Competition. He grew up in Idaho and Colorado and lived in
Chile for two years while serving an LDS mission. He collects antiques,
plays basketball, occasionally walks on his hands, grows daylilies, hikes, and
loves Indian and Thai food. He sometimes collaborates with his wife,
Jacqui Biggs Larsen, a painter and multi-media artist. Since 1993 he has
taught literature and creative writing at BYU, where he currently serves as
associate chair. He and Jacqui recently directed a study abroad program
in Madrid. In 2012, he was named to a five-year term as Utah Poet Laureate.
SHAUN T. GRIFFIN is one of the
Nevada’s finest poets. He has published seven books of poetry, three poetry
anthologies, and one translation. For many years he has taught a poetry
workshop at Northern Nevada Correctional Center and published an annual journal
of their work, Razor Wire. In 1995 he received the Governor's Award for
Excellence in the Arts and in 2006 was awarded the Rosemary McMillan Lifetime
Achievement in Art Award from Sierra Arts Foundation. Humanist, activist, and
educator, Shaun Griffin has spent a lifetime building bridges where there were
none for all members of the human com- munity. He is the co-founder and
director of Community Chest, a non-profit agency serving children and families
in northwestern Nevada since 1991, and the former founding director of the
state's homeless education office.
Most featured
readings are followed by an open reading. City Art is sponsored by the Utah
Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Catalyst, the Salt Lake City Public Library, Xmission, and the Zoo,
Arts, and Park Fund.
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.
26
Jesse Parent
Jean Howard
October
3
Mike Dorrell
10
Miles Fuller
Linda Aldrich
17
Jacqueline Osherow
Peter Covino
24
Cathy Wagner
Paisley Rekdal
November
7
Shaun Griffin
Lance Larsen, Utah’s Poet
Laureate
14
Michael Sowder
Jennifer Sinor
21
Michael Hansen
Tim Erickson
December
5
Sian Griffiths
Melanie Rae Thon
12
Michael Gills
Franklin Fisher
19
Holiday Open
January
9
Hector Ahumada
16
Katharine English
Joel Long
