The Grand Rapids Area Council for the Humanities has named Patricia Clark as the new poet laureate for the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the second person to be appointed to the 2-year position. Clark has a Ph.D. from the University of Houston, English and Creative Writing, and is a professor in the Writing Department at Grand Valley State University where she is poet-in-residence.
The Council's board of directors appointed the first poet laureate in 2003 to bring poetry to the forefront of the city's cultural experience. Goals for the poet laureate include stimulating community dialogue and encouraging thoughtful writing and reading of poetry, which is often under-represented to the public.
"Dr. Clark has an excellent publication history, remarkable record of community involvement, and strong desire to increase public exposure to poetry," said Cheryl Van Til, executive director of the Grand Rapids Area Council for the Humanities. "She will ensure that our record of successful poetry programming will continue to draw large and enthusiastic audiences."
Clark was also the recipient of a Creative Artist Grant from ArtServe Michigan for 2003. Her new book, My Father on a Bicycle, just published by Michigan State University Press, includes some of her work from the grant, with poems using the setting of the Grand River, especially Riverside Park, as a meditative landscape, discovering how "wisdom is moving water." Her research included poring over historic documents, photographs and diaries from the Van Andel Public Museum archives.
Other poems make a spiritual journey from the Pacific Northwest forests of her childhood. They explore the themes of love, mortality, and loss in the setting of the natural world, as in "the deserted road/impossible to find now, overgrown and gone." In the outdoors, near rivers and on walks, the speaker in these lyrical poems meditates on subjects she observes, celebrates life, and explores memory.
During her term as poet laureate, Clark is committed to working on further collaborations with cultural institutions in Grand Rapids, between the community and Grand Valley State University, and between artists who work in different areas. She has worked with Stan Krohmer on several poem and photography commissions as well as two projects with GVSU composer and jazz pianist Kurt Ellenberger.
"I wish that in the public schools and libraries there would be days for children of all ages to bring poems to school, poems by writers they have found," said Clark. "Then they could simply read the work out loud and enjoy the poems, laugh, and appreciate the poems, rather than endlessly trying to analyze them. "
"In addition, I would urge teachers to bring back the assignment of memorizing poems, encouraging students to do this both for recitation and for pleasure. It is a great way to come to know a poem deeply, to have a poem inhabit oneself, to take it in, physically.
Clark's work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Slate, Stand, New England Review, Pennsylvania Review, and North American Review, and many other journals. Her previous book of poetry, North of Wondering, won the first book competition sponsored by Women in Literature, Inc. She has also co-edited an anthology of women writers titled Worlds in Our Words.
Honors include the Mississippi Review Poetry Award, the Creative Artist Grant from ArtServe Michigan, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and twice receiving the Gwendolyn Brooks Award from the Midwest Poetry Festival for her poems. Her poem "Sculpture Garden" was one of seven national winners in the Fine Lines Poetry Contest in 2004.
UPCOMING EVENTS
March 18, Friday, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan: Patricia will be reading from My Father on a Bicycle, at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Library's Conference Room W449. This free event will be part of MSU Library's "Michigan Writers Series," Spring 2005.
Clark will launch her new book of poetry, My Father on a Bicycle, on Monday, March 21, during a noon reading, book signing and reception in the Van Solkema Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center at the Grand Valley State University, Allendale Campus.
Clark will officially begin her tenure as poet laureate on April 19, when she and current poet laureate Linda Nemec Foster appear at a special National Poetry Month celebration at 7 p.m. in the Kretchmer Recital Hall at Aquinas College. Both poets will read from their own work as well as select poems from other poets who have influenced them Contacts:
