The 37th Spring Poetry Series, sponsored by Salina Arts & Humanities, continues on Tuesday with an online reading by poet Ruth Moritz.
The reading will begin at 7 p.m. via Zoom web-based video conferencing. To sign up for the reading, visit Salina Arts & Humanities on Facebook, call the office at 785-309-5770, or visit the web page http://www.salinaarts.com/poetry_series.cfm. Viewers will be invited to ask the poet questions after the reading.
Moritz will read from two manuscripts, Camera Obscura, The Lover Dreams of Sleep, and the book Prodigal Light.
"I am motivated and inspired by paying close attention, reading, science, the natural world, and driving – moving through space while behind the wheel," Moritz said. "Just the other day, I read an article about the discovery of the 9,000-year-old remains of a woman found with hunting gear, which pointed to the fact that ancient women were hunters, not just gatherers. It immediately prompted me to begin a poem titled 'Field Report.'"
Two other local poets – Harley Elliott and Poetry Series founder Patricia Traxler - will read from their work via Zoom and YouTube on the remaining Tuesdays in April.
Moritz is a writer, an installation and graphic artist, and retired educator. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University, where she was the 2009-2010 MFA Fellow in Poetry. Her poetry has received an AWP Intro Journals Award, A Ploughshares New Voice Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and a Holt Prize in Literature. Her essays have received the Isotope Prize for Creative Non-Fiction and a Hunger Mountain Creative Nonfiction Prize.
Moritz’s poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, Puerto del Sol, and Mason’s Road, among other publications, and her poetic texts have become part of public visual art installations. She was director of the Spring Poetry Series for 17 years and has taught at The Ellsworth Correctional Facility, Kansas State University, and Kansas Wesleyan University.