LEWISTON, Idaho – The Lewis-Clark State College Center for Arts & History (CAH), located at 415 Main St. in Lewiston, will host a joint poetry reading on Wednesday, March 6, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Ron McFarland, a University of Idaho (UI) emeritus professor of English, will join Spokane native and graduate of the UI creative writing program, Georgia Tiffany, for in-class visits at LC State and the reading at CAH.
McFarland, who served as Idaho’s first State Writer-in-Residence, will read from his fifth full-length book of poems, “A Variable Sense of Things,” released by Cirque Press in Anchorage. His poems have been described as humorous, reflective and personal and touch on a broad array of topics such as a Boy Scout growing up in Florida, a customer service rep at a credit union, and a high school dropout pulling green chain at the local mill.
Tiffany is celebrating her first full-length book, “Body Be Sound,” published last November by Encircle Publications in Farmington, Maine. Educated as a concert pianist, first at University of Idaho and later at Indiana University, Tiffany taught for 16 years at Mead High School in Spokane. She instituted the school’s humanities and philosophy program and her creative writing students won numerous awards at state and national levels. She still teaches piano in Moscow. Her 60 poems speak to a wide range of topics including her love of Brahms and Chopin, to tundra swans and the Scablands, to her mother dancing in the kitchen and canning tomato preserves.
The two poets have presented together from Alaska to Florida, Ohio to Arizona, Bonners Ferry to McCall, where they’ve given creative writing classes and readings.
The event is supported by the generous sponsorship of the Rosehill Estate, the LC State Division of Humanities, and the Center for Arts & History.