Salina Spring Poetry Series celebrates 40th anniversary with five poet readings in April
The 2024 edition of the Salina Spring Poetry Series is also the series 40th anniversary, and this year's lineup of poets has just been announced.
At 7 p.m. each Tuesday throughout the month of April, Red Fern Booksellers at 106 S. Santa Fe Ave. will be hosting readings from one of the five poets selected by Kansas Poet Laureate Traci Brimhall.
Salina Arts and Humanities, the sponsor of the Salina Spring Poetry Series, said Brimhall curated a broad range of poets and perspectives for the 40th anniversary including those of a spoken word poet, a poet whose work is centered on the body, trauma, and the pharmaceutical industry and even the founder of the Salina Spring Poetry Series.
“Salina Arts and Humanities has been honored to present poetry to Salina over the last 40 years,” said Brad Anderson, executive director of Salina Arts and Humanities. “Over the decades, Salina has been enriched through the diversity of voices that explore our sense of place and reflect the human spirit.”
Brimhall said she is also excited to be able to have a part in celebrating this 40th anniversary of the series.
“It’s so incredible to be a part of celebrating 40 years of this series in Salina,” said Brimhall. “I'm so grateful for the celebration of different voices in Kansas poetry, and I'm so glad that this year's anniversary happens when there are five Tuesdays in the month, so we can hear even more great poems.”
Each Tuesday, Red Fern will host a reading by one of the poets, with guests paying an admission of $5 cash at the door. Students with an ID will be admitted free.
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Who are the poets selected for the 2024 Salina Spring Poetry Series?
Here's a list of who and when to see this year's lineup of poets at Red Fern Booksellers for the Salina Spring Poetry Series:
April 2 features Cash Hollistah, a national hip-hop recording artist, musician, spoken word poet, arts educator and community activist based in Salina. Hollistah's musical projects include 2016's "#cashmob." and 2017's "#cashmob. 2" His live performances have earned him spots on high-profile stages, notably South by Southwest, and billing with such acts as Common, Shaggy, Kirk Franklin and T.I. Hollistah also founded/hosted the former poetry series, "ONE MIC", and occasionally teaches "Poetry & Hip-Hop" specialty classes to students in central Kansas. Currently, Hollistah sits on the board of directors of the Kansas Music Hall of Fame.
April 9 features Hadara Bar-Nadav, an NEA fellow and award-winning author of several books of poetry, among them "The Animal Is Chemical," "The New Nudity," "Lullaby (with Exit Sign)," "The Frame Called Ruin" and "A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight," as well as the chapbooks "Fountain and Furnace" and "Show Me Yours." She is also co-author with Michelle Boisseau of the best-selling textbook "Writing Poems, 8th ed." Her poems have appeared in "The American Poetry Review," "The Believer," "Kenyon Review," "The New Republic," "Ploughshares," "Poetry," "Tin House" and elsewhere. Hadara is a professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
April 16 features Laura Lee Washburn, a university professor, the director of creative writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, the author of "The Book of Stolen Images" which was awarded the Nelson Book Award from the Kansas Authors Club, "This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition" and "Watching the Contortionists" (Palanquin Chapbook Prize) and the editor-in-chief of "Poetry Cooperative/Heartland: Poetry of Love, Resistance, and Solidarity." Her book "Arteries" is forthcoming this May. "Harbor Review’s" Washburn Prize is named in her honor.
Featured on April 23, Bradford Tice is the author of two books of poetry, "Rare Earth," which was named the winner of the 2011 Many Voices Project and a 2014 Debut-litzer finalist, and "What the Night Numbered," winner of the 2014 Trio Award. His poetry and fiction have appeared in such periodicals as "The Atlantic Monthly," "North American Review," "The American Scholar," Epoch, as well as in "Best American Short Stories 2008." His poetry was also selected as the winner of Prairie Schooner’s 2009 Edward Stanley Award. He currently teaches at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln.
Finally, April 30 will feature Patricia Traxler, founder and longtime director of the Salina Spring Poetry Series. She also taught at Kansas Wesleyan University for more then three decades. In the decades since Traxler moved to Salina from San Diego, she has been active in the cultural life of the city. Traxler is the author of four volumes of poetry, including her most recent, "Naming the Fires," a novel "Blood" and a short-story collection "In the Skin." She is working on a book of essays, "Don't Ask Me," and a volume of her collected poems, as yet untitled.
This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Salina Spring Poetry Series celebrating 40th anniversary this April
