Duluth Poet Laureate Reads at UMD

Inaugural Poet Laureate Event

Barton Sutter, Duluth Poet Laureate and an award-winning Minnesota poet, essayist, and fiction writer, will give a reading at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 21 in the Weber Music Hall. The UMD Department of English and Lake Superior Writers are sponsors of the event. Sutter is the author of four collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a collection of essays.

Sutter was chosen as Duluth's first poet laureate, a two-year position, in April 2006. He teaches English and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

Barton Sutter will be joined by his brother, Ross Sutter, to form a poetry and music duo. The brothers have performed together ever since they were growing up as a couple of preacher's kids. Ross plays a number of instruments including guitar, button accordion, concertina, dulcimer, and Irish goat-skinned drum.

Barton Sutter is the only author to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories: for fiction with My Father's War and Other Stories; for creative non-fiction with Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map; and for poetry with The Book of Names: New and Selected Poems.  Among other honors, he has won a Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant (Sweden), a Loft-McKnight Award, and the Bassine Citation from the Academy of American Poets.  He has adapted his poems for the stage and written for public radio.

The Duluth Poet Laureate is a newly created position that recognizes and honors a poet of exceptional talent and accomplishment. The position encourages enjoyment of poetry and literary life in the Duluth area and makes the Poet Laureate available to a wide audience. Lake Superior Writers, a Duluth writing group, sponsors the Duluth Poet Laureate and holds public Poet Laureate events each year. Duluth is the first city in Minnesota to name a Poet Laureate.

For information about the event, contact the UMD English Department, 726-8228.

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