Iowa State Poet Laureate Mary Swander read at the MUM Library North Lounge at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012. There was a reception for the author afterwards and refreshments were served. This event was made possible through funding from Humanities Iowa.

In 2009, Governor Chet Culver appointed Mary Swander the Poet Laureate of the State of Iowa. Her most recent work is a book of poetry, The Girls on the Roof (Turning Point/Word Tech, 2009), a Mississippi River flood narrative. Swander has worked with the Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre to create a performance piece of The Girls for the stage. Currently, Swander is also touring her play Farmscape, a docudrama capturing the changing rural environment. She is the co-founder of Agarts, a national group designed to explore the intersection of the arts and agriculture, and is developing a website, The Iowa Literary Community, where anyone with an Iowa connection can post poetry and other pieces of writing.

I had the great honor of interviewing one of my all-time favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye.  This interview will air Sunday, October 3 at 10:30 am and Monday, October 4 at 1:30 pm on Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost, KRUU-LP 100.1 FM, http://kruufm.com.

Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Jordan, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her B.A. in English and world religions from Trinity University. [Click read more below.]

Join Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost in a visit with Susan Klauber.

about the author:

Susan Klauber, a Sudbury, Ontario native who has lived and travelled around the world (North & S. America, Europe, India) has always been drawn by the power of foreign cultures to broaden her understanding of life. Since 1983, she has been based in Fairfield, Iowa where she writes and pursues her interest in creating a better world through spiritual development.

Blue Light Press published her first book of poetry and prose, Face-off at Center Ice in 1996. Susan’s prose and poetry have appeared in the Harcourt Canada textbook Elements of English 11, in the journals The MacGuffin, Poetry Motel, The Iowa Source, Contemporary Review, and in the anthologies Eclipsed Moon Coins: Twenty-Six Visionary Poets, The Dryland Fish, and the newly released This Enduring Gift.