(October 26, 2012)

Louisiana Poet Laureate, contest winners give reading at Meadows Museum

SHREVEPORT, LA — Louisiana Poet Laureate Julie Kane will give a reading of her work in Centenary's Meadows Museum of Art November 4, 2:00 p.m. Six prize-winning poets from a contest held by The Friends of the Meadows Museum will join Kane. The poetry readings are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

"The prize-winning poets were challenged to compose work in response to Monica Zeringue's Matador, currently on display in the main gallery of the Museum," said Ashley Havird, Chair of the Program Committee for the Friends of the Museum. "What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in November than to cozy up with some poetry and art at the Meadows Museum?"

The writers who placed in the contest include (1) Kathryn Usher, (2) Nadine Charity '81, (3) Robert Trudeau, and three runner-ups: Elisabeth Liebert, Tama Nathan, and current Centenary student Ellen Orr.

Louisiana's current Poet Laureate Dr. Julie Kane is the author of poetry collections Jazz Funeral and Rhythm & Booze. She is an editor of two anthologies, Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum and Voices of the American South. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, London Magazine, Feminist Studies, and numerous anthologies. A former George Bennett Fellow in Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy, Writer-in-Residence at Tulane University, and Fulbright Scholar at Vilnius Pedagogical University in Lithuania, she teaches at Northwestern State University.

Monica Zeringue's Matador is a thirty-foot drawing featuring surreal scenes and events that create a running and enigmatic visual.

The Meadows Museum of Art is open to the public free of charge. For more information and hours, visit the Museum online or call 318.869.5040.