Only at Western

Katharine Coles, accomplished Utah poet and novelist, will read from her work on Friday, February 24 as part of the Visiting Writers Series. The event will take place at Western Wyoming Community College in Room 1302 at 7:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
           
Coles is a professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Utah. She has published four collections of poetry: The One Right Touch, A History of the Garden, The Golden Years of the Fourth Dimension, and Fault. She is also the author of two novels, The Measurable World and Fire Season.      

Her poems have also appeared in a variety of other settings. In collaboration with visual artist Maureen O’Hara Ure, she has produced two installations and an artist’s book, Swoon. Her poem “Numbers” is part of a permanent installation in the Leroy Cowles Mathematics Building at the University of Utah.  Another series, Passages, appears as a permanent installation in Salt Lake City’s Passages Park. In addition, her poems have been set to music by a number of composers, including Kurt Bestor, Steve Roens, and Dana Gress.

In late 2010, Coles traveled to Antarctica for a month to write poems under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. The opportunity, she said, “enabled me to pursue my central, ongoing interest of exploring the intersections of poetry with other intellectual endeavors, especially scientific but also artistic, philosophical, and historical.” This interest led her to found the Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, which she now co-directs with Mathematician/biologist Fred Adler.     

During 2009 and 2010, Coles served as the inaugural director of the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, conceived as “an independent forum created to provide a space in which fresh thinking about poetry, in both its intellectual and its practical needs, can flourish free of any allegiance other than to the best ideas.”  

As Poet Laureate of Utah, a position she was appointed to in 2006, Coles travelled throughout her state to promote literature, particularly poetry, at colleges, universities, schools, community centers and other public venues. In 2009, she launched the Bite-Size Poetry Project. The goal of the project was to put a bite sized poem (one that can be read aloud in one minute or less) in front of every Utahan every month. Eighteen of Utah’s finest poets contributed their bite-size poems and recorded them on video.

Katharine Coles’ visit is sponsored by the Arlene and Louise Wesswick Foundation and by the WWCC English Department, with additional support from BEST WESTERN Outlaw Inn. It is the second of four Friday readings and workshops by visiting writers taking place this spring. Other writers who will be coming to Rock Springs are Tim Brookes of Burlington, Vermont author of a dozen non-fiction books on a wide range of subjects, on Friday, March 23; and Frieda Knobloch from the University of Wyoming, author of two non-fiction books on the American West, on April 13. 

The visiting writers also offer workshops prior to their readings, in which they facilitate writing exercises, share writing experiences and tips, and answer student-generated questions. Cole’s workshop is scheduled from 2-5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24, in Room 1408. For more information on the workshop or the reading, contact WWCC Associate Professor of English Rick Kempa at rkempa@wwcc.wy.edu.

Photo Caption:  Poet Katharine Coles will present an afternoon workshop and an evening reading at Western Wyoming Community College on Friday, February 24. Meyers is the second of four writers in the Spring 2012 Visiting Writers series sponsored by the WWCC English Department and the Arlene and Louise Wesswick Foundation.