Poetry Promise Posts
As you may know, Sharon Olds is one of the most influential poets of our time and she is coming here to Las Vegas! Her early work set a unique standard of beauty, sympathy, and truth for poets writing from personal experience. In 2012, she won the Pulitzer Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize for her book Stag’s Leap. Her work is characterized by family troubles and triumph, having in some ways initiated the genre of Survivor Poetry in the USA, and also writing memorably of love in her own successful family. Her latest book, Odes, recently reviewed on the cover of the NY Times Arts section, describes ongoing trials of the American family.
Nationally-renowned poet and author Patricia Smith lead a writers’ workshop at 2:00 p.m. August 27 at the Flamingo Branch Clark County Library. At 7:00 p.m. the same evening she read from her work at the Nevada State College Auditorium in Henderson. Both events were free and open to the public.
Smith is a four-time National Poetry Slam Champion, the most successful ever. She is featured in the film Slamnation and on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. She is also honored as an academic poet. Her book awards include a National Poetry Series selection, the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Prize, the Library of Congress Bobbitt National Prize, and selection as a National Book Award finalist. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, the National Poetry Series award, the Patterson poetry award, two Pushcart prizes, and the Rattle poetry prize. Her non-fiction book, Africans in America, was published by Harcourt Brace as a companion book to the PBS television series.
Nationally-renowned poet and author Patricia Smith read from her work and conducted a poetry workshop in Las Vegas on Saturday, August 27 as part of Clark County Poet Laureate Bruce Isaacson’s “Poets of National Stature” series. Isaacson previously presented U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and San Francisco poet Michael McClure in the series. Isaacson also hosts an open poetry readings series at 2 p.m. most Saturdays at Winchester Cultural Center and a monthly series of poetry workshops at noon at the same location.
The Poets of National Stature series is supported in part by the Clark County Department of Parks and Recreation, Nevada State College, Nevada Humanities, NV Energy, and the Las Vegas Clark County Library District.