U.S. Poet Laureate to Deliver Keynote at Taos Summer Writers’ Conference

The 19th United States Poet Lau­re­ate, Natasha Trethewey, will deliver the keynote address at the 15th Annual Taos Sum­mer Writer’s Con­fer­ence, Sun­day, July 14, 8 p.m., at the Sage­brush Inn Con­fer­ence Cen­ter, 1508 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur.

In addi­tion to teach­ing cre­ative writ­ing in UNM’s Eng­lish Depart­ment, Sharon Oard Warner, con­fer­ence direc­tor, also teaches monthly poetry work­shops at Uni­ver­sity Hospital’s Psy­chi­atric Center.

Warner said, “I knew Trethewey had been selected most recent U.S. Poet Lau­re­ate, so I went in search of her poems that I could share with my classes. The first poem I chose was ‘His­tory Les­son,’ which turned out to be both mov­ing to read and enjoy­able to dis­cuss. Shar­ing her poetry with patients at the Psych Cen­ter was so grat­i­fy­ing that it occurred to me Trethewey would be a won­der­ful addi­tion to this year’s con­fer­ence. Who bet­ter to invite than some­one whose work I’ve recently come to love?”

Trethe­way is the author of, “Thrall” (2012), “Native Guard,” for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, “Bellocq’s Ophe­lia” (2002), and “Domes­tic Work” (2000). Librar­ian of Con­gress James Billing­ton in his cita­tion wrote, “Her poems dig beneath the sur­face of history—personal or com­mu­nal, from child­hood or from a cen­tury ago—to explore the human strug­gles that we all face.”

Trethewey is the recip­i­ent of fel­low­ships from the Guggen­heim Foun­da­tion, the Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion Bel­la­gio Study Cen­ter, the National Endow­ment for the Arts and the Bunting Fel­low­ship Pro­gram of the Rad­cliffe Insti­tute for Advanced Study at Har­vard. Her poems have appeared in such jour­nals and antholo­gies as Amer­i­can Poetry Review, Callaloo, Kenyon Review, The South­ern Review, New Eng­land Review, Get­tys­burg Review and sev­eral vol­umes of The Best Amer­i­can Poetry.  

At Emory Uni­ver­sity Trethewey is Robert W. Woodruff Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish and Cre­ative Writing. In addi­tion to being United States Poet Lau­re­ate, she is the State Poet Lau­re­ate of Mis­sis­sippi, from 2012–2016.

The keynote oppor­tu­nity to hear Trethewey read from her work is free and open to the pub­lic. Her books will be avail­able for pur­chase and sign­ing. For more infor­ma­tion on the 15th Annual Taos Sum­mer Writ­ers’ Con­fer­ence, visit the web­site.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact: Sharon Oard Warner, call(505) 277‑6248 or fax (505) 277‑2959.