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.