Walter Bargen, Missouri Poet Laureate to Present Workshop - “The First Line is the Poem”

From our friends at the St. Louis Writers Guild.

On Saturday, June 7, from 10 am until noon, St. Louis Writers Guild will host WALTER BARGEN, Missouri Poet Laureate, who will present a talk titled "The First Line is the Poem." You do not want to miss this historic opportunity to meet our first Poet Laureate and also learn what he has to say about poetry. This event will take place at Barnes & Noble-Crestwood, 9618 Watson Road, Crestwood, MO 63126. The presentation will include readings and books will be available for purchase and signing. Admission is free for SLWG members. The $5 fee for non-members will be fully credited toward dues if application is made within 30 days. Please help spread the word. For information, visit: www.stlwritersguild.org. For a chance at a $10 gift card from Barnes & Noble, please register to attend at: http://www.stlwritersguild.org/zfiles/calendarprograms/events/registration.php

Walter Bargen has published eleven books and two chapbooks of poems: Fields of Thenar (Singing Wind Press, 1980), Mysteries in the Public Domain (BkMk Press, UMKC, 1990), Yet Other Waters (Timberline Press, 1990), and The Vertical River (Timberline Press, 1995), Rising Water: Reflections on the Year of the Great Flood (Pekitanoui Publications, 1994), the chapbook At The Dead Center Of Day (BkMk Press, UMKC, 1997), Water Breathing Air (Timberline Press, 1999), Harmonic Balance (Timberline Press 2001), Vow of Hunger (Snark Publishing, 2003), The Body of Water (Timberline Press, 2003), The Feast (BkMk Press-UMKC, 2004), Remedies for Veritgo (WordTech Press, 2006), and West of West (Timberline Press, 2007). His twelfth book, Theban Traffic, is scheduled for publication in May 2008.

Walter Bargen’s poems and fictions have appeared in over one hundred magazines, including American Literary Review, American Letters & Commentary, Beloit Poetry Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Boulevard, Denver Quarterly, Georgia Review, International Quarterly, Iowa Review, Missouri Review, New Letters, New Novel Review, Notre Dame Review, Pleiades, River Styx, Seattle Review, Seneca Review, Sycamore Review, and Witness. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship (1991); winner of the Quarter After Eight Prose Prize (1995), the Hanks Prize (1996), and the Chester H. Jones Foundation poetry prize (1997), and the William Rockhill Nelson Award (2005). In January, 2008, he was appointed to serve as the first Poet Laureate of Missouri.