MSSU Langston Hughes Celebration Slated for February 25

February 2, 2005

Joplin, Mo.

Missouri Southern State University will honor Joplin-born poet and writer, Langston Hughes with a special program at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 25 in Webster Hall Auditorium. 

The evening will feature an appearance by  Marilyn Nelson, poet laureate of Connecticut and author of Carver: A Life in Poems.  The appearance is free and open to the public.

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin Feb. 1, 1902.  Considered by many to number among the greatest American poets of the 20th century, he is particularly admired for his innovative use of blues and jazz rhythms in poetry to express his African American cultural heritage.

He also wrote novels, short stories, plays, opera lyrics and books for children. Hughes was the central figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and was a powerful voice against racism
Marilyn Nelson's book, The Homeplace, was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award and won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award.

The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems, was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award, the PEN Winship Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize, and won the 1998 Poet's Prize. Her most recent work, Carver: A Life in Poems, movingly tells the story of botanist and inventor George Washington Carver in verse.

Of the book, Ashley Bryan states, "Marilyn Nelson has crafted spare, singing lines that succeed in creating a biography in poems that brilliantly evoke Carver's life." Poet Nikki Giovanni adds, "What a magnificent job [Nelson has] done to bring the past so alive it looks like our future."

"Marilyn Nelson's presence in Connecticut has greatly enriched the state," says Susan Holmes, Artistic Programs Director at the University of Connecticut, who nominated Nelson for Poet Laureate. 

"She is a vital American voice speaking of our past and present from her multiple perspectives of daughter, mother, wife, artist, teacher, friend and African-American. Her teaching and support of young writers has been exceptional, and her readings of her work are not only wonderfully entertaining, but memorable and inspiring."

Nelson's honors include two Pushcart Prizes, two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Artist Fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the 1990 Connecticut Arts Award, and most recently, a Guggenheim Fellowship. Since 1978, she has taught at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she is a professor of English.

Stephen Ernest Smith, M.A.
Manager, Missouri Southern News Bureau
Missouri Southern State University-Joplin
3950 E. Newman Road
Joplin, MO, 64801-1595
Voice: 417.625.9506  Fax: 417.625.3142
e-mail: smith-se@mssu.edu

Dr. Doris Walters
(417) 625-9644

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