Finding the Extraordinary in the ordinary - Kevin Rabas
Kansas Poet Laureate, Kevin Rabas, will be presenting Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary at the KAC District 5 July meeting.
Poetry can illuminate the path through our daily lives, revealing beauty in the mundane tasks and objects that we often overlook. As poet Naomi Shihab Nye observed, “Poetry helps us to see something worth seeing everywhere, whether inside or outside of us.” Emotions triggered by everyday items—the memory of a lost mother, or the anxiety that comes with hope—often go unseen but are given voice through poems that span continents and generations. As Kansans, most of us can appreciate memories connected to limestone postrock, birdhouses, soap dishes, soup bowls, and sunset light. With words and music, this presentation will uplift our daily experiences by exploring what poet Pablo Neruda called “odes to ordinary things.”
Kevin is a poet, jazz musician, and professor who teaches poetry and playwriting at Emporia State University. He also chairs of the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism. His collection of poems, Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, was a Kansas Notable Book in 2010 and a winner of the Nelson Poetry Book Award. He is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry, the Victor Contoski Poetry Award, and the Jerome Johanning Playwriting Award, among others.
His most recent poetry collection, All That Jazz, was published by Spartan Press in the summer of 2017.
This presentation is courtesy of Humanities Kansas and is free and open to the public.
When: Saturday, July 14, at 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Where: Larksfield Place, 7373 E. 29th St. N., Wichita KS (just west of Rock Rd. on the south side of 29th Street).
Park in the Visitors lot and enter the Welcome Entrance. The presentation will be in the Larksfield Place Independent Living Auditorium to the left of the entrance.
Poetry can illuminate the path through our daily lives, revealing beauty in the mundane tasks and objects that we often overlook. As poet Naomi Shihab Nye observed, “Poetry helps us to see something worth seeing everywhere, whether inside or outside of us.” Emotions triggered by everyday items—the memory of a lost mother, or the anxiety that comes with hope—often go unseen but are given voice through poems that span continents and generations. As Kansans, most of us can appreciate memories connected to limestone postrock, birdhouses, soap dishes, soup bowls, and sunset light. With words and music, this presentation will uplift our daily experiences by exploring what poet Pablo Neruda called “odes to ordinary things.”
Kevin is a poet, jazz musician, and professor who teaches poetry and playwriting at Emporia State University. He also chairs of the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism. His collection of poems, Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, was a Kansas Notable Book in 2010 and a winner of the Nelson Poetry Book Award. He is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry, the Victor Contoski Poetry Award, and the Jerome Johanning Playwriting Award, among others.
His most recent poetry collection, All That Jazz, was published by Spartan Press in the summer of 2017.
This presentation is courtesy of Humanities Kansas and is free and open to the public.
When: Saturday, July 14, at 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Where: Larksfield Place, 7373 E. 29th St. N., Wichita KS (just west of Rock Rd. on the south side of 29th Street).
Park in the Visitors lot and enter the Welcome Entrance. The presentation will be in the Larksfield Place Independent Living Auditorium to the left of the entrance.