Emeritus English Professor Named SLO County Poet Laureate
Emeritus English Professor Kevin Clark has been named the new San Luis Obispo County Poet Laureate. We are excited about the opportunities to come for our community! The San Luis Obispo County Poet Laureate Program is dedicated to advocating the literary arts by appointing an outstanding local poet as Poet Laureate to promote an appreciation of poetry among people of all ages. The appointment is a two-year term. The Poet Laureate shares the art of poetry with citizens of San Luis Obispo County through their writings, recitations and leadership of community poetry readings.
Here is a bit about Kevin..
Winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Book Competition, Kevin Clark’s Self-Portrait with Expletives was published by Pleiades Press and distributed by LSU Press. His first full-length collection, In the Evening of No Warning (New Issues Poetry and Prose), earned a grant from the Academy of American Poets. Clark also won the Angoff Award for best contribution to The Literary Review, an Artsmith fellowship, and a Bread Loaf fellowship.
The author of three chapbooks, Clark has published poems in such journals as the Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Antioch Review, Crazyhorse, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, and Poetry Northwest. One of his poems was anthologized in The Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years.
Clark also writes essays about literature, some of which have appeared in magazines such as the Iowa Review, Southern Review, and Contemporary Literary Criticism. A semi-regular contributor to The Georgia Review, he has published essays in books about Ruth Stone, Charles Wright, and Sandra McPherson. He and his son, the actor and artist Joe Hewes-Clark, have cowritten a play, Brick’s Last Call.
Recipient of two teaching awards, Clark has written a textbook on writing poetry, The Mind’s Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry (Pearson Longman). He spends summers teaching at the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency MFA program in Tacoma, Washington.
Clark lives with his wife, Amy Hewes, on California’s central coast, where he continues to play city league softball “despite legs like ancient concrete and more injuries than Evel Knievel.”
Check out more at his website kevinclarkpoetry.com
Story originally appeared on Arts Obispo