Friends of Poetry!
A special POETRY NIGHT will take place tonight, July 5th, at 8 P.M. at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1stStreet in Davis. Please join us for this special event featuring the state poet of Nebraska, UC Davis alumnus and poetry slam-master Matt Mason.
Matt Mason is the Nebraska State Poet and Executive Director of the Nebraska Writers Collective. He runs poetry programming for the State Department, working in Nepal, Romania, Botswana and Belarus. Mason is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for his poem “Notes For My Daughter Against Chasing Storms”; his work can be found in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry. In 2011, he helped bring the Louder Than a Bomb teen poetry festival to Nebraska, establishing an Omaha chapter that now includes participants from more than 35 high schools in Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa. His work with Slam Poetry also led him to found the Omaha Healing Arts Center Poetry Slam, which takes place on the second Saturday of every month. The author of Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know (The Backwaters Press, 2006) and The Baby That Ate Cincinnati (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2013), Matt is based out of Omaha with his wife, the poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown, and daughters Sophia and Lucia.
An open mic will follow this special poetry night, with participants asked to limit their time to five minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. The people behind Poetry Night express special thanks to John Natsoulas and the Natsoulas Gallery staff for opening the gallery for this Friday night of poetry. An after-party will follow the open mic.
