#KStateEnglishEngagement

A slip from the Dream Nest submitted by a visitor to the Guggenheim Museum's Dream Walks (2025) This year I have been traveling back and forth between Manhattan, Kansas, where I live, and Manhattan in New York City for my role as the Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. In Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard says … Continue reading Poetry and Community

Saturday, September 6th was a delicious afternoon down in Hutchinson as poets gathered at the Kansas State Fair to read poems about Kansas foods. The event was to help celebrate the book Eat Your Words: A Kansas Poetry Cookbook, which collected 20 recipes from chefs across the State of Kansas and 20 poems in response to … Continue reading Home on the Range: Poems of Kansas Landscape and Food at the 2025 State Fair

In her role as Kansas Poet Laureate, Traci Brimhall is launching Poets on the Plains. Produced by High Plains Public Radio (HPPR), the series will explore a sense of people and place through poetry. I love poetry on the page, but I also love hearing it spoken aloud. That is, after all, its origin as … Continue reading Poets on the Plains

Ferris wheels and funnel cakes. Showing goats and eating hotdogs. Live music and prize vegetables. These are some of the big draws for the Kansas State Fair, held every September in Hutchinson, KS. But these are also great subjects for poems. This year at the Kansas State Fair, there will be 20 poems about displays … Continue reading Poetry Harvest: Poems at the State Fair

The 2024 National Poetry Month poster features artwork by award-winning children’s author and illustrator Jack Wong and lines from “blessing the boats” by poet Lucille Clifton. Since our blog debuted in 2017, we have published 500+ posts.  While some of you may have been with us from the start (thank you, loyal readers!), others may … Continue reading From the Archive: How to Celebrate National Poetry Month