The 39th Salina Spring Poetry Series, sponsored and organized by Salina Arts & Humanities, continues on Tuesday, April 11, with a reading by Gary Jackson.
The reading will begin at 7 pm at Ad Astra Books & Coffee House (135 N. Santa Fe Ave.). Admission will be $5 at the door and free for students with ID.
Huascar Medina, Kansas Poet Laureate Emeritus, curated this year’s series. Medina selected poets with a broad range of perspectives who will share their work in Salina this April.
“Gary Jackson's latest collection, Origin Story, is a must-read. I cannot sing its praises enough. His work is heartfelt and imaginative. Gary's capacity to make the intimate accessible is something to aspire to and admire. When I read Missing You, Metropolis, I realized poetry and pop culture could inhabit the same page without losing sincerity. It opened possibilities for me as a poet,” says Medina.
Born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, Gary Jackson is the author of the poetry collections Origin Story (University of New Mexico Press, 2021) and Missing You, Metropolis (Graywolf Press, 2010), which received the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He’s also the co-editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry (Blair Publishing, 2021). His poems have appeared in numerous journals including Callaloo, The Sun, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Copper Nickel. He’s received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and Art Omi. He’s published work in Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology and was featured in the 2013 New American Poetry Series by the Poetry Society of America. He’s an associate professor in English and creative writing at the College of Charleston where he’s currently the Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing and teaches in the MFA program and serves as the Poetry editor of Swamp Pink.