Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas

PRA’s 2020 Dr. Lily Peter Spring Celebration is scheduled for April 18, 2020, at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 401 President Clinton Avenue, room 124, Little Rock. The Center is located on the Central Arkansas Library’s main campus in the River Market next door to the Cox Building where many PRA meetings have been. The first floor has a gift shop and the meeting room is located at the rear of the shop. Registration will begin at 9:15 am. There is no registration fee and lunch will be on your own. There are a number of eateries located across the street at the River Market.

Laura Trigg of River Market Poets will serve as Spring Celebration Chair. Featured speaker is Jake Sawyer, a poet and writer from Mena, Arkansas. Jake is currently a senior at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas, and is finishing a degree in Environmental Studies and English in preparation for a life spent exploring and advocating for the natural world. He received first prize in the Poet’s Roundtable of Arkansas Jeannie Dolan Carter Memorial Collegiate Poetry Contest in 2018. He also won the University of the Ozarks’ Project Poet competition in 2017, then went on to manage and host the event in subsequent years.

Each year this conference honors Dr. Lily Peter in recognition of her efforts to promote poetry in Arkansas. For conference questions contact Frieda Patton at patton.frieda@gmail.com or 501-847-5328.

(Use of Central Arkansas Library System meeting facilities does not constitute endorsement of the beliefs, viewpoints, policies or affiliations of the user by the library board or staff.)

The 2020 NFSPS Convention will be held at the Holiday Inn Aladdin, Kansas City Missouri, June 11th-14th, 2020(*Cancelled). Room and Convention Registration/information will be posted as soon as available at http://www.nfsps.com/conv.html.

PRA’s 2020 Poetry Day Conference is scheduled for October 10 at the Darragh Center Auditorium, Main Library, 100 Rock Street, Little Rock. The Center is located in the main library building in the River Market next door to the Butler Center where many PRA meetings have been. Registration will begin at 9:15 am. There is no registration fee and lunch will be on your own. There are eateries located across the street at the River Market.

Laura Bridges will serve as Poetry Day Chair and Marie Allison will serve as Poetry Day Contest Chair.

Sandy Longhorn will be the featured speaker. She has received the Porter Fund Literary Prize for Arkansas authors and the Collins Prize from the Birmingham Poetry Review. She is the author of three books of poetry: The Alchemy of My Mortal Form, The Girlhood Book of Prairie Myths, and Blood Almanac. Her poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, North American Review, Oxford American, and elsewhere. Longhorn teaches in the Arkansas Writer’s MFA program at the University of Central Arkansas, where she directs the C.D. Wright Women Writers Conference.

Poetry Day is the main poetry event in Arkansas. Each year this conference honors Arkansas Poet Laureate Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni (1953-1970). As a result of her efforts to promote poetry in Arkansas, Governor Ben Laney proclaimed October 15, 1948, the first annual Poetry Day in Arkansas. For conference questions contact Frieda Patton at patton.frieda@gmail.com or 501-847-5328.

(Use of Central Arkansas Library System meeting facilities does not constitute endorsement of the beliefs, viewpoints, policies or affiliations of the user by the library board or staff.)