Poetry in the Museum: The Nature of Nature

Photo of Plants

A Baker-Nord Cosponsored Event

In a thought-provoking afternoon at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, a panel of nationally recognized poets will address the “Nature of Nature”. Before the discussion/ reading, the guest poets will announce the winners of the 2014 Poetry in the Museum contest, who will read their winning poems. Support provided by the Helen Buchman Sharnoff Endowed Fund for Poetry at Case Western Reserve University, as well as by the CWRU Office of Diversity.


About the Speakers

David Hassler

David Hassler is an award-winning author and poet and director of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. He has published two collections of poems, most recently Red Kimono, Yellow Barn, for which he was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year. He is the author of several nonfiction books as well, including the play, May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970 based on the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project (The Kent State University Press, 2013) and Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community (The Kent State University Press, 2006). He is coeditor of Learning by Heart: Contemporary American Poetry about School, After the Bell: Contemporary American Prose about School, and A Place to Grow: Voices and Images of Urban Gardeners. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Sun, Double Take/Points of Entry, Indiana Review, and other journals. He is a frequent speaker at regional and national events on issues of poetry and education.

Emily Wilson

Emily Wilson grew up in Maine and now makes her home in Iowa. She attended the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and has published two books of poetry, The Keep (2001) and Micrographia (2009). Her new book, The Great Medieval Yellows, will arrive from Canarium Books in 2015. She has received a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and designs and prints letterpress books under the imprint, Spurwink Press.

M.L. Smoker

M.L. Smoker, an enrolled member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes in Montana, is the author of one collection of poetry, Another Attempt at Rescue, published by Hanging Loose Press. She is currently the Director of Indian Education for the Montana Office of Public Instruction, but has also served as a high school principal and an instructor for Fort Peck Community College. She has also co-edited an anthology of human rights poetry with Melissa Kwasny entitled, “I Go to the Ruined Place”.


Additional Resources

Associated Poetry Contest Guidelines


Cosponsored with:

Cleveland Museum of Natural History