WILSON, N.C. – The seventh annual Walking Into April Poetry Day at Barton College is scheduled for Saturday, April 11, at The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center and is sponsored by the North Carolina Poetry Society (NCPS), the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series, and Barton College. Registration opens at 9:15 a.m., and the program begins at 9:45 a.m.
Featured poets include Flatlanders Nancy Tripp King and Marty Silverthorne, and Eastern North Carolina’s Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Lenard Moore. Reading with Moore will be three student poets: Morgan Whaley from Mount Olive College and Onslow County adult student poets Donna M. Graham and Patsy Kennedy Lain. The three students were selected for this year’s Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series.
Pushcart Award nominee Nancy Tripp King is the author of three chapbooks of poetry – “Tobacco Blossoms and the Pulled-Tight Twine,” a finalist for the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry, “Those Days When Love Doesn’t Work,” and the forthcoming “Between Glass and Cardboard.”
Marty Silverthorne has published four books of poetry, including Persephone Press Award winner “Pot Liquor Promises,” “No Welfare, No Pension Plan,” and, most recently, “Rewinding at 40.” He is a previous winner of the Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award.
Lenard Moore, Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for Eastern North Carolina, has published five books of poetry, including his latest, “A Temple Looming.” Winner of a 2008 Raleigh Medal of Arts Award, he is executive chairman of the North Carolina Haiku Society and president of the Haiku Society of America.
The afternoon will include an open mic, and participants are invited to bring poems to share. Participants also may bring books or CDs to sell.
The event is free, but reservations for lunch, at $9 per person, should be made by April 8. Checks for lunch should be made to Barton College. You may register by calling or emailing Dr. Rebecca Godwin, director of The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center, at 252-399-6364 or at rlgodwin@barton.edu.
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Questions? Please contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.