Poet and author Max Garland will be the featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Friends of the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library on Thursday, Apr. 14.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Eau Claire Room on the library’s lower level. It is free and open to the public and no registration is required.
Garland served as Wisconsin’s poet laureate in 2013-14. He is a professor emeritus at UW- Eau Claire, where he taught creative writing and literature for 20 years.
In his presentation “The Cultivation of Wonder: Reflections on Poetry, Libraries, and Learning,” Garland will read poems and share observations from his visits to numerous Wisconsin public libraries. He will discuss the place of the library in Wisconsin’s communities, particularly as this relates to the ideas of identity, commonwealth, and the “cultivation of wonder.”
Garland is the author of Hunger Wide as Heaven and The Postal Confessions, which won the Juniper Prize for Poetry. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, a James Michener Fiction Fellowship, a Bush Artist Fellowship, and fellowships in poetry and fiction from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in many publications.
In addition to Garland’s presentation, the Friends of the Library will elect new board members and will recognize Grace E. Rich with the Distinguished Service Award. Further information is available by e-mailing friendsofthelibrary@eauclaire.lib.wi.us or by calling 715-831-5301.