NSU presents Benjamin Myers, Poet Laureate of Oklahoma

(Tahlequah, Okla.)-- Northeastern State Universitys Department of Languages and Literature presents a poetry reading and workshop by Benjamin Myers, the 2015-2016 Poet Laureate of the State of Oklahoma, on April 12, 2016. The workshop will begin at12:30 p.m. and will be located on the Tahlequah campus in Seminary Hall, room 112 and the poetry reading will begin at6 p.m. in the NSU Jazz Lab. Both the reading and the workshop are free to attend and open to the public.

According to The Library of Congress, the State Poet Laureate is the designated honorary position, appointed by the Governor from lists provided by poetry societies and organizations. The State Poet Laureate program is facilitated by the Oklahoma Arts Council on behalf of the governor. The Oklahoma Arts Council works with the State Poet Laureate to coordinate activities and appearances in communities throughout the state.

Dr. Audell Shelburne, chair and professor of languages and literature, stated that Myers was nominated for the honor of Poet Laureate by the department of Languages and Literature at NSU.

Myers is the kind of person who can be an ambassador for poetry and who can effectively promote its many virtues to the public, Shelburne said.

Myers teaches poetry writing and literature at Oklahoma Baptist University, where he is the Crouch-Mathis Professor of Literature. He is the author of two books of poetry: Lapse Americana and Elegy for Trains. His poems may be read in The Yale Review, The New York Quarterly, 32 Poems, The Christian Century, Nimrod, Measure and other journals, as well as in general readership publications like Oklahoma Today and In Touch. He has been honored with an Oklahoma Book Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book and with a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers Conference.

For more information regarding this event, contact Chris Murphy, assistant professor of English, at murphy07@nsuok.edu.