Ark. Poet Laureate featured at Wednesday Night Poetry
Arkansas Poet Laureate Suzanne Underwood Rhodes will be featured at Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee + Tea, 110 Central Ave.
The regular open mic session for all poets, musicians and storytellers will begin at 6:30 p.m. today. Rhodes will begin her feature set at 7:30 p.m., followed by another round of open mic. Admission is free and open to all ages.
“Born in Nyack, New York, on Oct. 4, 1950, and currently living in the mountains of Fayetteville, Rhodes was appointed to a four-year term as the Poet Laureate of Arkansas in January 2022 by Governor Asa Hutchinson,” a news release said.
“Poets Laureate of Arkansas are recommended to the serving Governor through a nomination process conducted by the Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of poetry, existing to foster and encourage poets in the art, promote an appreciation of poetry in the community, and to secure a fuller recognition of the works of contemporary poets in the state of Arkansas,” it said.
Wednesday Night Poetry poets John Crawford and Kai Coggin were also nominated for Arkansas Poet Laureate in the latest appointing process. Rhodes’ predecessor is Jo Garret McDougall, who served as Poet Laureate from 2018-2022.
“Writing and teaching poetry is my dual calling in life,” Rhodes, a teaching poet who has published several collections, said in the release. “Among its many other attributes, poetry is a healing art. I’m self-employed. I have a small editing and writing business, PR Flair. I also teach virtual poetry workshops at the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia, as well as to the women residents of the Magdalene Serenity House in Fayetteville.
Rhodes, a former teacher of creative writing and literature at King University, has a bachelor’s degree in English from
James Madison University and an MA in the Writing Seminars (poetry) from Johns Hopkins University.
“I live and write in Fayetteville. My husband and I moved here five years ago from Virginia Beach to be near our grandson,” she said. “I’m a widow, having lost my beloved husband Wayne in June 2022. It still feels recent and raw. I have three adult children and a grandson, plus two long-haired siamese cats, Foxley and Samurai, that I’m keeping for my youngest daughter while she’s in an MFA film studies program for two years at Florida State University.”
Rhodes said she wrote her first poem when she was 6 years old and she has “been writing ever since (notwithstanding dry spells and difficult life circumstances). I have always been drawn to nature and to being solitary in nature because of the quiet, the beauty, and the sense of God I felt there.”
That first poem was called “The Secret Stream.” “What inspires me to write now is the natural world, same as then, and the underlying and overlaying spiritual force present in much of what I see and experience,” she said.
“I write nature poetry, poems about my childhood and family members, poems about women in history and literature, poems about characters I imagine (persona poems), ekphrastic poems, poems with biblical themes, and most recently, an outpouring of poems about loss,” she said. “What moves me to write are images and words that evoke feeling and excite my imagination. My favorite poets are Dylan Thomas, Jane Kenyon, Li Young-Lee, T.R. Hummer, Mary Oliver, and whoever else I’m reading that I feel electrified by.”
Widely published in journals and anthologies, her published books include “Flying Yellow: New and Selected Poems” (Paraclete Press, 2021); “Hungry Foxes” (chapbook, Aldrich Press, 2013); “A Welcome Shore” (lyrical prose, Canon Press, 2010); “The Roar on the Other Side” (student guide for writing poetry, Canon Press, 2000); “What a Light Thing, This Stone” (poetry, Sow’s Ear Press, 1999); “Sketches of Home” (lyrical prose, Canon Press, 1998); and “Weather of the House” (chapbook, Sow’s Ear Press, 1994). She will have books to sell and autograph at Wednesday Night Poetry.
Rhodes’ many awards and accolades include “Milk from the Moon” chapbook shortlisted for Wildhouse Publishing; “Flying Yellow” named semifinalist in North American Book Award, Poetry Society of Virginia; first place, poetry, Dr. Lily Peters Memorial Award; third place in poetry, Arizona Poetry Society; Virginia Poet Laureate nominee, 2014; “A Welcome Shore” nominated for a Library of Virginia award, 2011; resident fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, May 1992; first place in poetry, Virginia
Commonwealth University Creative Writing Festival; first place in poetry, Virginia Highlands Creative Writing Contest; two poems nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
When asked about her connection to WNP, Rhodes said, “I’ve been learning about Wednesday Night Poetry, and how, since its origin in 1989, it’s the longest continuously run open mic venue in the nation. That’s remarkable and wonderful. Also, that so many eminent poets like Jane Hirshfield and Joy Harjo have been featured there is impressive. About four years ago I ate at Kollective Café when I was in Hot Springs; that is when I found out about this wonderful space.”
“It is an honor for me to welcome Arkansas Poet Laureate Suzanne Underwood Rhodes as our special guest and featured poet this week at Wednesday Night Poetry,” Coggin, WNP host and Hot Springs Poet Laureate, said.
“I think it is important for the state Poet Laureate to know about all of the wonderful things going on in other cities like Hot Springs and Little Rock, where poetry is thriving alongside Fayetteville. Poetry in Arkansas is on fire, and opportunities for collaboration abound. I am eager to hear more of Suzanne’s poetry, and to meet her in person. I know her work is a touchstone for many, and I know the WNP audience will appreciate her light. I know it will be a night to remember,” she said.
Wednesday Night Poetry thanked Mary Zunick and the Hot Springs Area Cultural Alliance, for their partnership in bringing Rhodes to Hot Springs, the release said.
This week marks 1,809 consecutive Wednesdays of open mic poetry in downtown Hot Springs since Feb. 1, 1989. Wednesday Night Poetry is the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country, the release says. For more information, email wednesdaynightpoetry@gmail.com.