Reading by acclaimed poet planned in Silver City

A Pulitzer Prize nominated poet is visiting Silver City to present and read from his poetry books.

David Lee’s 23rd book, “Bluebonnets, Firewheels, and Brown-Eyed Susans, or, Poems New and Used from the Bandera Rag and Bone Shop,” was published recently, and so the author has been on tour, reading poems and teaching workshops.

The poet is stopping in Silver City at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3, to give a talk at the Silver City School House/Community Center, 385 High St. He’ll read several poems he’s written during the last few months while living in Silver City, as well as selections from his new book.

The free event — sponsored by the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, the Silver City Volunteer Library, Healthy Communities Coalition, and Silver City Arts group — will include appetizers and pre-and post-event acoustic blues by Mylo McCormick.

The event also includes a pop-up show with samples of work by nine artists. Pieces include paintings, assemblages, drawings, essays, music, and photographs by Sophie Scott of New Zealand, Stewart Easton and Claire Scully of England, New Zealand born photographer Frances Melhop, Brian Schorn of Michigan, Silver City native Mylo McCormick, Marielle Toll of Gold Hill, Ava Covington of Carson City, and Scott MacLeod of Oakland.

Lee’s newest book of poetry is focused on the women of mid-20th century rural Texas, “frontier survivors and the daughters of frontier survivors, indomitable women with tastes that run from Baptist preaching to bourbon-and-branchwater.” The poetry is based on actual characters, a tribute to women who shaped and molded the poet’s life.

Lee is Utah’s first and longest serving Poet Laureate. He also has been a boxer, pig farmer, seminary student, cotton mill worker, and baseball player. He earned a Ph.D. with a specialty in the poetry of John Milton, and served as the Chairman of the Department of Language and Literature at Southern Utah University where he taught for more than three decades.

In 1999, Lee’s collection “News From Down to the Café” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He was named one of Utah’s top 12 writers of all time by the Utah Endowment for the Humanities, and has been honored with the Utah Governor’s Award for lifetime achievement in the arts. He has been honored with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has received both the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award in Poetry and the Western States Book Award in Poetry. In 2001, he was chosen as a finalist for Poet Laureate of the United States.

Silver City is located within a National Historic District about three miles from Virginia City, and about 15 miles from Carson City.

For more information, call Quest Lakes at 775-847-0742.