Maine Poet Laureate to Host Evening Program at State Library

Augusta ? Maine Poet Laureate, Wesley McNair will kick-off a statewide ?whistle-stop? tour of community readings with an evening event at the Maine State Library on Thursday, November 6 at 6:00 PM. The program is part of the Poetry Express initiative led by McNair and made possible by grant from the Maine Humanities Council and support from the Maine Arts Commission.

Poetry Express programs feature local writers and community readers who will read their favorite poetry selections. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Wesley McNair was named Maine?s Poet Laureate in 2011 and holds an impressive list of awards and recognitions. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright, and Guggenheim Foundations, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in literature, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships for Creative Writers, and in 2006 a United States Artists Fellowship of $50,000, fifty of which were awarded across the arts to a selection of ?America?s finest living artists." Other honors include the Robert Frost Prize; the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry (for Fire); the Devins Award for poetry; the Eunice Teitjens Prize from Poetry magazine; the Theodore Roethke prize from Poetry Northwest; the Pushcart Prize, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal (also awarded to Robert Frost, Donald Hall, Maxine Kumin, Robert Lowell, May Sarton, Arthur Miller, Richard Wilbur, et. al.) for his "distinguished contribution to the world of letters." He has received three honorary degrees for literary distinction.

For more information, please contact the Maine State Library at 207-287-5600.

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