Poet
Patricia Kirkpatrick

Poet
Lee Ann Roripaugh

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Talk on craft
3:00 P.M.—CSU Ostrander Auditorium
Reading
7:30 P.M.—CSU Ostrander Auditorium

PATRICIA KIRKPATRICK’S books include Century’s Road and a letterpress chapbook Orioles, as well as books for young readers, Plowie: A Story from the Prairie, Voices in Poetry: Maya Angelou and Voices in Poetry: John Keats. She is currently editing a book of interviews with American poets. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Loft, the McKnight Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. Maintaining a desire to connect poetry with audiences beyond the literary community , she has taught and conducted workshops in many places, including Macalester College, the Princeton Theological Seminary, the Saint Paul Public Library, and numerous elementary and secondary schools. She teaches part-time in the MFA program of Hamline University where she is the poetry editor for Water-Stone Review.

LEE ANN RORIPAUGH’S second volume of poetry, Year of the Snake, was published by Southern Illinois University Press as part of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry. Her first book, Beyond Heart Mountain, was a 1998 winner of the National Poetry Series, and was selected as a finalist for the Asian American Literary Awards. The recipient of a Archibald Bush Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship, she was also named a winner of the Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, the Frederick Manfred Award for Best Creative Writing awarded by the Western Literature Association, and the Randall Jarrell International Poetry Prize. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her poetry has also been selected for inclusion in such anthologies as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation, Poets of the New Century, American Poetry: The Next Generation, and Waltzing on Water: Poetry by Women. A native of Laramie, Wyoming, Roripaugh is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Dakota.

This year's Good Thunder Reading Series is funded by the Minnesota State University Department of English, the MSU College of Arts and Humanities, the MSU Office of Institutional Diversity, MSU Library Services, the Eddice B. Barber Visiting Writer Endowment, the Robert C. Wright Endowment, and individual donors. This activity is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council from funds appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature. This activity is also made possible in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.