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To Celebrate the Final Weeks of the Exhibition Photo/Synthesis: James Baker Hall
and National Poetry Month
Poetry Reading with Special Guests:
Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Brett Eugene Ralph
and Richard Taylor
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
7pm Reception
7:30-8:30pm Readings
in the Atrium Gallery
Free and open to the public
To commemorate National Poetry Month 21c has invited two of Kentucky's most celebrated
literary presses to present works by Kentucky authors Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Brett
Eugene Ralph, and Richard Taylor. Both Sarabande Books (founded
1994) and Larkspur Press (founded 1974) allow authors an alternative
to mainstream publishing where an emphasis is placed on design in addition to the
quality of the literary word. While publishing some of the best authors regionally,
these two companies stand out amongst many others in their dedication to give importance
and worth to the printed word and the authors who create it.
About the Authors
Mary Ann Taylor-Hall
Mary Ann Taylor-Hall has a distinctive style in her ability to satisfy the reader's
hunger for story and also the reader's pleasure at peering at her character's interior
moments. In her more recent work of At the Breakers: A Novel (Kentucky Voices)
published this year, Taylor-Hall presents centuries of memorable women in trouble
in a well-rendered novel about forgiveness and reconciliation.
Works by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall:
Come and Go, Molly Snow (1996)
How She Knows What She Knows About Yo-Yos (2000), read a description of the
book at Sarabande Books
At the Breakers: A Novel (Kentucky Voices) (2009)
Brett Eugene Ralph
Brett Eugene Ralph was born on Friday the 13th in May of 1966. He spent the better
part of his youth in Louisville Kentucky, his work has appeared in journals such
as Conduit, Mudfish, Willow Springs, and The American Poetry Review; it has been
anthologized in The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets and Thus Spake the Corpse:
An Exquisite Corpse Reader. His first full-length collection, Black Sabbatical,
will be published by Sarabande Books in July 2009.
Works by Brett Eugene Ralph:
Black Sabbatical (2009), forthcoming, please visit Sarabande Books for more information
Richard Taylor
A native of Louisville, Richard Taylor's interest in literature began in high school
when a friend recommended he read works by contemporary poets Dylan Thomas and E.
E. Cummings. Taylor's literary career, though, did not flourish until he attended
the University of Kentucky and began writing for the campus publication, Stylus.
Says Taylor of Kentucky, "The history and landscape of Kentucky make it an
especially fertile place for writers ... Any place you go in the Bluegrass, you
can bore down to sedimentary rock ... It gives you a sense of your smallness in
the face of the geological time under us." In addition to his many other accomplishments,
Taylor was the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 1999.
Works by Richard Taylor:
Bluegrass (Monterey: Larkspur Press, 1975)
Earth Bones (Frankfort: Gnomon Press, c.1979)
Stone Eye (Monterey: Larkspur Press, 2001)
Rail Splitting: 50 sonnets about Abraham Lincoln (Forthcoming: Fall 2009,
wood engravings by Wesley Bates)