The poetry reading featuring Amelia Martens of McCracken County and Pamela Johnson Parker of Graves County will be held in the Bill Ford Gallery located in PSAD's 2D and Graphic Design Building at 905 Harrison Street in Lower Town Paducah. The event is free and open to the public.
Martens and Parker are among 16 Kentucky artists awarded a $7,500 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council (KAC) for 2019. The prestigious award, named in honor of former arts council board chair and Kentucky journalist Al Smith, recognizes professional artists who have reached a high level of achievement in their careers.
A WKCTC instructor, Martens is the author of The Spoons in the Grass are There To Dig a Moat (Sarabande Books, 2016), and four poetry chapbooks: including, most recently, Ursa Minor (elsewhere magazine, 2018). Her work has also been supported by the Kentucky Foundation for Women and a SAF fellowship to Rivendell Writers' Colony. She met her husband in the Indiana University Master of Fine Arts program; together they have created the Rivertown Reading Series and WKCTC's Exit 7: A Journal of Literature and Art. She received both a master in fine arts degree in creative writing and a master in science degree in literacy, culture, and language education from Indiana University.
"Amelia Martens' works embody thought provoking reading and outstanding standards of literature. West Kentucky Community and Technical College is proud of Amelia and her recent recognitions by the Kentucky Foundation for Women as well as her fellowship to Rivendell Writers' Colony," said Dr. David Heflin, vice president of academic affairs at WKCTC. "Being named as a recipient of the 2019 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, is yet another example of Amelia's dedication to her craft and exemplifies the incredible skills of our faculty."
Parker is the author of a collection of poetry, Cleave, which won the 2017 Trio Award from Trio House Press and was published in 2018. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Other Four-Letter Words (Finishing Line Press, 2009); and A Walk through the Memory Palace (Phoenicia Press, 2009), which won the Qaartsiluni Chapbook Prize. Parker has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Science and Nature Writing 2019. In addition to the 2019 Al Smith Fellowship, Parker was named outstanding teacher by Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority. She received a master of fine arts degree from Murray State University, where she taught humanities, creative writing, contemporary poetry, and forms of fiction before transferring to the university's department of art & design where works as an administrative assistant. She serves as the prose editor of the literary magazine, Alligator Juniper.
"I have enjoyed the poetry of Pamela Parker for a while now and am thrilled to have her read at the Paducah School of Art and Design, showcasing our region's two most recent Al Smith Fellows," said Britton Shurley, dean of humanities, fine arts, business, and social science at WKCTC. "These fellowships, from the Kentucky Arts Council, highlight the amazing literary talent we have in western Kentucky, and this reading is another fantastic way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the PSAD."
For more information about the poetry reading, contact Shurley at britton.shurley@kctcs.edu or 270-534-3243.
