Dr. Charles Fort
professor of English, 308.865.8164
The premiere of a new Nebraska Educational Telecommunications (NET) Television program featuring U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the University of Nebraska at Kearney Fine Arts Recital Hall, where a portion of the program was videotaped last spring.
Titled “Ted Kooser’s Poetic World,” the documentary introduces Ted Kooser as the 13th U.S. Poet Laureate and his goal of making poetry an every day experience for all Americans. For more than 40 years, Kooser woke up at 4:30 a.m. to write poetry before leaving for his job in the life insurance business. The program will show viewers about his writing history and his role as the U.S. Poet Laureate. The program will be broadcast statewide in December on NET1.
After the screening, a group of UNK student-poets will read some of their works. The students were selected to read by UNK English professor Charles Fort from among students taking his creative writing poetry classes. Student-poets will include Kristi Bonner, Kevin Moon, Brad Stastny, Pam Vap, David Salyer, Jeff Gerdes, Marla Earlly and William Gilbreath.
Last April, area poetry fans attended the “Plain Poetry: Kooser, Kloefkorn and Conversation” poetry reading and discussion, which makes up a considerable portion of the new program. Nebraska poets who presented poetry at the April event are featured in the program, including Mika Tacha ofBertrand, Mary Strong Jackson of Scottsbluff, Dominique Garay of Lincoln and Lyn Messersmith of Cherry County.
“Ted Kooser’s Poetic World” was funded in part by the Nebraska Arts Council, the Nebraska Center for the Book and the Nebraska Library Commission.
This event is free and open to the public.
