By Nancy Takacs, Poet Laureate of Helper City
KT Gallery is hosting a poetry reading as part of the statewide Utah Humanities Festival of the Book on Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. I am hoping you can make it. I think you’ll absolutely love these two poets.
The Utah Humanities supports readings around the state during the month of October. Please join us in celebrating their new work. It is always a joy to be in Karen Templeton’s beautiful gallery, to see the fine artwork, and for these literary events, generously hosted by Karen. We want to see you. It’s the perfect time of year for a literary gathering. Refreshments will be served before and after the reading, and the poets’ books will be for sale. Please invite friends!
Here is some info about the poets:
Natalie Young is a founding editor of the Utah-based poetry magazine Sugar House Review. By day, she works as an art director for an ad agency based out of Salt Lake City. Recent publications include Drunken Boat, Green Mountains Review, Tampa Review, Rattle, South Dakota Review, Los Angeles Times, Tar River Poetry and others.
Young is left-handed, half Puerto Rican, and a fan of Oscar the Grouch and purple potatoes. Her book “All of This Was Once Under Water” is her recent book of poems that has been illustrated. You may read more about it here: https://psalteryandlyre.org/2023/09/22/book-review-all-of-this-was-once-under-water-by-natalie-padilla-young-with-art-by-maximiliane-spies/
Cindy King served as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Texas in Dallas until 2016, when she moved to Hurricane, Utah, and then to St. George, where she is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Dixie State University (DSU) and faculty advisor of The Southern Quill, DSU’s literary arts journal. She also enjoys serving as the faculty advisor of DSU’s creative writing club and as an advocate for creative writing in her community.
King has won several poetry awards, and has published in Prairie Schooner, Potomac Review, Quarter After Eight, Rattle, RHINO Poetry, River Styx, Roanoke Review, Ruminate Magazine, Slipstream, Smartish Pace, The South Carolina Review, Sou’wester, The Sun and other journals.
King’s new book is “Zoonotic,” described as “Cindy King is a bebop poet. In her syncopated lines, she explores a life of loss, reinvention and the chaotic music of her place in time. Every poem is a riff on the infinite now with its accidents, fishnet stockings and noise. This is a beautiful, elegiac, angry, consoling and combustible collection.” —Barbara Hamby