Peggy Shumaker is one of our own.
Although she makes her home in Alaska
and writes out of that vast subarctic wilderness,
she was raised in this terrain, of Arroyos, Creosote, and Dust
Devils.
She graduated from our university's creative writing
MFA program.
And through her generosity, she helped
us create this space and a program that connects students
with the work of the Poetry Center.
We take pride in her and her accomplishments as an alumna,
as the recent writer laureate for the State of Alaska,
and is founder of Boreal Books, which publishes fine literature
and fine art from Alaska.
And I just learned that next year she's
going to publish a book of poems by another U of A MFA
graduate, Susanna Mishler.
In Peggy's books of poems, especially Wings Moist
From the Other World, Underground Rivers,
and Gnawed Bones, she locates us in the splendor and austerity
of both her Alaskan and desert habitats,
interweaving themes of hope and loss.
But her latest book, Toucan Nest,
travels far from the familiar to equatorial Costa Rica.
These poems startle, as they reveal
a landscape that forces new modes of seeing and feeling
the world.
I'm eager to hear her read them tonight.
Please welcome, Peggy Shumaker.
[APPLAUSE]