WHO: A Mississippi State special event will honor Catherine Pierce, an English professor serving as the state’s Poet Laureate. After the event, Pierce will sign copies of her publications, all which will be available for sale.
WHAT: “A Conversation and Reading with Mississippi Poet Laureate Catherine Pierce”
WHEN: Monday, April 11, 3 p.m.
WHERE: Lee Hall’s Bettersworth Auditorium
DETAILS: Created in 1963, Mississippi’s Poet Laureate serves as the official state poet, creating and reading poetry at state occasions and agency activities, and representing the Magnolia State’s rich cultural heritage. The Office of the Governor, in partnership with the Mississippi Arts Commission and Mississippi’s other cultural agencies, appoints the position to a four-year term. Pierce is MSU’s first Poet Laureate, with her term expiring in April 2025.
Pierce said her work as Poet Laureate is rooted in her belief that “poetry is for everyone.” In addition to public events, Pierce writes a monthly column—Poetry Break—for the Clarion-Ledger and Hattiesburg American newspapers, aimed at providing readers the tools to write poems of their own. She also developed and hosts The Mississippi Poetry Podcast, a bi-weekly interview with Mississippi poets designed for educators to use in their classrooms.
Pierce is the winner of the 2021 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Award for her book “Danger Days,” a collection of poems addressing the beauty of the world, as well as destruction created by climate change. She has authored four books of poetry. She has received a 2020 Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Artist Fellowship for her poetry, a 2020 Pushcart Prize for her poem “Entreaty,” and a 2018 Pushcart Prize for her poem “I Kept Getting Books about Birds.” She also received a 2019 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, Boston Review and The Southern Review, among many other publications. For more, visit http://www.catherinepiercepoet.com/.
See the full news release at https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2022/04/msu-event-honors-catherine-pierce-states-poet-laureate
CONTACT: For more information, contact Karyn Brown in the College of Arts and Sciences, at 662-312-3477 or email kbrown@deanas.msstate.edu.
