National Poetry Month Kickoff Event

National Poetry Month honors the legacy and achievements of American Poets every April. Join the Pikes Peak Library District for a special kickoff event featuring readings from prominent local poets and Colorado’s own Poet Laureate, Joe Hutchison. The event will also feature readings by Jeana Lovett, Aaron Anstett, James Ciletti, Price Strobridge, Mary Margaret Alvarado, Susan Peiffer, David Mason, and Janice Gould.

Joseph Hutchison, appointed in September 2014 to a four-year term as Poet Laureate of Colorado, is the author of 15 collections of poems, including Marked Men, Thread of the Real, The Earth-Boat, and Bed of Coals (winner of the Colorado Poetry Award). His poems have appeared in over 100 journals and more than 25 anthologies. He has co-edited two anthologies, Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai and A Song for Occupations: Poems about the American Way of Work (with Gary Schroeder), and he continues to produce a literary blog, The Perpetual Bird, which he founded in 2006. The Satire Lounge, a collection of his satirical poems, and Ephemeral, his translations from the Spanish of Mexican fabulist Miguel Lupián, are both forthcoming in 2015. He currently teaches graduate courses in writing and literature at the University of Denver’s University College, where he also serves as Interim Academic Director of Arts & Culture and Global Affairs. Born in Denver, he lives in the southwest of Denver with his wife, Melody Madonna.