Forest City, Iowa – Waldorf College Associate Professor of Creative Writing Joe Wilkins will host a public reading of Notes from the Journey Westward, his latest collection of poems. This is his second collection of published poetry and winner of the 17th Annual White Pine Press Prize in Poetry.
“I often find myself inspired by and writing toward the same concerns: family, history, memory, landscape, and survival,” said Wilkins, who has been working on this book for roughly five years.
Notes from the Journey Westward interrogates the idea of America—especially its westering, both historical and contemporary, the rough, rocky journeys through the wind-blown interiors of the continent—and of American’s own hearts.
“The most striking component of [Wilkins’ work] is its awareness of ‘the whole world,’” said Indiana Review Poetry Editor Deborah Kim. “What is ordinary becomes transcendent…. In places derelict and seemingly unexceptional, Wilkins compels us to recognize what is worth salvage, worthpraise.”
Wilkins’ reading will take place on Monday, Nov. 12 at 7 p.m. in Waldorf College’s Salveson Ballroom. Poems, essays, and stories by Wilkins have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, Harvard Review, Ecotone, the Sun, Orion, and Slate, among other magazines and literary journals. He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in north Iowa, where hedirects the creative writing program at Waldorf College.
Notes from the Journey Westward can be purchased at the Waldorf College Bookstore or at online booksellers and will be available to buy at the book reading.
