Silver City, Nevada - David Lee's 23rd book, Bluebonnets, Firewheels, and Brown-Eyed Susans, Or, Poems New and Used from the Bandera Rag and Bone Shop, was published recently, and so he's been on tour, reading poems and teaching workshops at the Cliff Notes Writing Conference in Utah, at poetry festivals in Ohio, and at the university in Reno. It is our great fortune that he'll also offer a reading here on the Comstock on Saturday, December 3rd at 2:30pm at the Silver City School House/Community Center (385 High Street). He’ll read several poems he’s written during the last few months while living in Silver City, as well as selections from his new book.
FREE EVENT: This free, public event sponsored by the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, the Silver City Volunteer Library, Healthy Communities Coalition, and Silver City Arts group will include appetizers and pre- and post-event acoustic blues by Mylo McCormick, and a pop-up show with samples of work by 9 artists from Nevada, Michigan, California, New Zealand and England. Silver City is located within a National Historic District about 3 miles from Virginia City, and about 15 miles from Carson City.
ABOUT DAVID LEE’S POETRY: Lee's poetry is described as "the real deal when it comes to recording hilariously insightful (and linguistically accurate) observations of rural culture—and America at large—while using a host of astute literary allusions and techniques. Imagine Robert Frost simultaneously channeling Will Rogers and Ezra Pound. Imagine Chaucer with a twang."
Lee’s newest book of poetry is focused on "the women of mid-20th century rural Texas: frontier survivors and the daughters of frontier survivors, indomitable women with tastes that run from Baptist preaching to bourbon-and-branchwater. This is an authentic book of the mid-20th century based on actual characters, a paen to women who shaped and molded the poet's life."
ABOUT DAVID LEE: Utah's first and longest serving Poet Laureate and author of 23 books of poetry, David Lee has also been a boxer, pig farmer, seminary student, cotton mill worker, and baseball player. Lee earned a Ph.D. with a specialty in the poetry of John Milton, and served as the Chairman of the Department of Language and Literature at Southern Utah University where he taught for more than 3 decades. In 1999, his collection News From Down to the Café was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, a testament to the wide national interest in his work. Lee was named one of Utah’s top 12 writers of all time by the Utah Endowment for the Humanities, and has been honored with the Utah Governor’s Award for lifetime achievement in the arts. He has been honored with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has received both the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award in Poetry and the Western States Book Award in Poetry. In 2001, he was chosen as a finalist for Poet Laureate of the United States.
WORK BY 9 ARTISTS ALSO ON DISPLAY: On the same day, attendees can also view a pop-up show at the School House with samples of work created at the Resident Artist Program in Silver City over the last two years. Pieces will include paintings, assemblages, drawings, essays, music, and photographs by Sophie Scott of New Zealand, Stewart Easton and Claire Scully of England, New Zealand born photographer Frances Melhop, Brian Schorn of Michigan, Silver City native Mylo McCormick, Marielle Toll of Gold Hill, Ava Covington of Carson City, and Scott MacLeod of Oakland.
For more information about the event, contact Quest Lakes at 847-0742.
