Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken to give reading at WVC Feb. 27

 

 Washington state poet laureate Kathleen Flenniken will give a reading from her latest book, Plume, on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 12 p.m. in Wells Hall Campus Theater at Wenatchee Valley College. This event is free and open to the public.

Plume (University of Washington Press, 2012) is a meditation on the Hanford Nuclear Site and Flenniken's hometown of Richland, Wash. The collection was a recent finalist for a Pacific Northwest Book Award. Flenniken's first book, Famous (University of Nebraska Press, 2006) won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her honors include a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Artist Trust.

She is an editor and president of Floating Bridge Press, a nonprofit press dedicated to publishing Washington State poets, and she is president of Jack Straw Foundation, an audio arts studio and cultural center.

The poet laureate serves to build awareness and appreciation of poetry through public readings, workshops, lectures and presentations to communities, schools, colleges and universities, and other public settings. The poet laureate is sponsored by Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission. Flenniken will serve as the state's poet laureate until 2014.