The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, April 18, 2024
Time: 6 p.m., CDT
Where: Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, 11 NW 11th St., Oklahoma City, OK
Poet Kimberly Blaeser will read in Oklahoma City as part of the “Where Poetry Is” Series presented by Oklahoma State University. Kimberly Blaeser is author of Ancient Light. The event is free and open to the public. Blaeser’s poetry is part of Austrian artist Eva Shchegel’s Multiple Voices at Campbell Park in Oklahoma City. After reading works by dozens of writers, Schlegel selected pieces from three poets connected to Oklahoma: Steve Bellin-Oka, Kimberly Blaeser, and Joy Harjo. The poems appear in blurred form directly on Multiple Voices’ glass panels, registering each poem as part of the sculpture, but rendered cryptic to the viewer (photo above).
About the book:
Elegiac and powerful, Ancient Light uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time. With vision and resilience, Kimberly Blaeser’s poetry layers together past, present, and futures. Against a backdrop of pandemic loss and injustice, MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), hidden graves at Native American boarding schools, and destructive environmental practices, Blaeser’s innovative poems trace pathways of kinship, healing, and renewal. They celebrate the solace of natural spaces through sense-laden geo-poetry and picto-poems.
