Category: Literary
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‘The Body as a Lens to Look at Everything’
In the biographical statement on the back of her new book, Wyatt Townley is described as living at “the curious intersection of poetry and poetry-in-motion.” And her rhythmic command of her chosen literary medium bears that out. “Rewriting the Body” is the fourth and latest poetry collection by Townley, a Shawnee Mission resident who was Kansas Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2015.
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A Novel Approach
In July 1814, 16-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin departed her home in England and travelled to France with the already married poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Two years later, during the summer of 1816, they took up residence in Geneva, Switzerland, where, housebound by abnormally low temperatures that earned 1816 the epithet, “the year without a summer,” their companion George Gordon (Lord) Byron, suggested that the group engage in writing ghost stories.
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Honors: Anne Boyer
It’s a good bet that Anne Boyer wouldn’t frame her recent success in clichéd terms. As an acclaimed poet and essayist, it’s unlikely that she would resort to such shopworn language as “the sky’s the limit” in reference to her ascending literary reputation. Or, for that matter, “the possibilities are endless.” Nonetheless, the future looks bright — there goes another cliché — for Boyer, an assistant professor of liberal arts at the Kansas City Art Institute.