Reception and Reading to Celebrate North Carolina’s New Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers

Friday, April 30, 2010 – 7:00 PM

BMC Museum + Arts Center, 56 Broadway, Downtown Asheville

Free

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and The Captain’s Bookshelf are pleased to announce a reception and reading on Friday, April 30th at 7:00 PM to celebrate North Carolina’s new Poet Laureate, Cathy Smith Bowers. Though a native of Lancaster, SC, Cathy lives in Tryon, and has strong roots in Western North Carolina.

Her powerful poems about family and loss have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review and The Kenyon Review as well as in her own books: The Love that Ended Yesterday in Texas (inaugural winner of the Texas Tech University Press First Book Competition, 1992), The Candle I Hold Up to See You (Iris Press, 2009) and two others.

Ms. Bowers received Queens University’s 2002 J.B. Fuqua Distinguished Educator Award and the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Award given by the North Carolina Poetry Society in 2006 and 2007.

Immediately after the reception, Cathy will host readings by some of Western North Carolina’s most exciting voices, including Rose McLarney, David Hopes, Sebastian Matthews, Landon Godfrey, Jeff Davis, and others.

Co-sponsored by The Captain’s Bookshelf and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center.