Hybrid events happening online and across Nevada on April 26-28, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Stephanie Gibson, Assistant Director, 775.784.6537, sgibson@nevadahumanities.org
April 7, 2022—RENO, Nev—Nevada Humanities, in partnership with the Humanities Center at Great Basin College, the Nevada Arts Council, and Great Basin College, is hosting an online evening of poetry and conversation with in-person watch parties held across Nevada on Wednesday, April 27 at 6-7 pm PDT. The event, titled Love, Land, and Language: A Reading and Conversation with Natalie Diaz, Moderated by Gailmarie Pahmeier, will feature poet Natalie Diaz, author of Postcolonial Love Poem for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2021, and will be moderated by Gailmarie Pahmeier, the Nevada Poet Laureate and 2016 Nevada Writers Hall of Fame inductee.
The event on April 27 can be accessed from across the state either online or at live-streamed, in-person watch parties. Participants can join poet Gailmarie Pahmeier in person at Great Basin College in Elko, in the High Tech Center, Room HTC 120, where she will speak with Natalie Diaz who will be joining the event via Zoom; join an in-person watch party live stream from the college’s many satellite locations in Elko, Ely, Winnemucca, and Pahrump, along with Nevada State College in Henderson; or watch online via the platform Bluejeans from across Nevada and beyond. All modes of participation for this event will take place on Wednesday, April 27 at 6-7 pm PDT, and require advance registration; register at nevadahumanities.org.
“In celebration of National Poetry Month, Nevada Humanities is honored to join poet Natalie Diaz with Nevada Poet Laureate Gailmarie Pahmeier to discuss language, the open spaces of the West, and the critical need for all our voices to be heard,” states Christina Barr, executive director of Nevada Humanities. “We hope you will be able to join us in the location and format that best works for you.”
“One of the silver linings of the pandemic, as so many events moved online, was that those of us in the rural areas got to participate in amazing discussions. By partnering with Nevada Humanities and the Nevada Arts Council, a smaller organization like the Humanities Center at GBC can actively participate to bring together two amazing poets, live from Elko and virtually, in a state-wide event,” states Gail Rappa, Humanities Center Coordinator at Great Basin College. “These types of partnerships are part of the commitment by all three organizations to ensure rural Nevadans have a seat at the table in the arts and humanities, and we are thrilled to be part of it!”
There are two additional events being planned that feature either Nevada poet Gailmarie Pahmeier or the poetry of Natalie Diaz.
On Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at 6 pm PDT, at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Gailmarie Pahmeier will be joined by Nevada Arts Council Literary Fellow Justin Evans where they will each share their work in a free poetry reading in a hybrid in-person/online event. An Evening of Poetry with Gailmarie Pahmeier and Justin Evans is a free event and can be attended either in person or online.
On Thursday, April 28 at 5:30-7pm PDT on Zoom, the Humanities Center at Great Basin College Book Club will be hosting a discussion featuring the book Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz. This event is open to all readers who want to experience a deeper dive into Diaz’s poetry. This program is free and open to all. To learn more about this event visit humanities.gbcnv.edu/book_club_books for a link to join the discussion at the appropriate time.
Natalie Diaz is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press, and her second book, Postcolonial Love Poem, was published by Graywolf Press in March 2020 for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2021. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
A 2016 inductee into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, Gailmarie Pahmeier has published three full-length works of poetry, The Rural Lives of Nice Girls, The House on Breakaheart Road, and Of Bone, Of Ash, Of Ordinary Saints: A Nevada Gospel, as well as three chapbooks—short collections of poems with a unifying theme. She served as inaugural Reno Poet Laureate, 2015-2017. In September of 2021, the governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, appointed her Nevada Poet Laureate. Now Emerita, Pahmeier taught creative writing and contemporary literature at the University Nevada, Reno, where she received the University Distinguished Teacher Award and the Alan Bible Teaching Excellence Award, among other distinctions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Southern Illinois University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arkansas.
About Nevada Humanities: Nevada Humanities is one of 56 independent, nonprofit state and territorial humanities councils affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. With offices in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada Humanities creates public programs and supports public projects statewide that define the Nevada experience and facilitate the exploration of issues that matter to the people of Nevada and their communities. For more information about Nevada Humanities visit nevadahumanities.org.
About Nevada Arts Council: The Nevada Arts Council, a division of the Nevada Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, was created as a state agency in 1967. With offices in Carson City and Las Vegas, Nevada Arts Council programs serve as a catalyst to stimulate artistic, creative, cultural, and economic activity across the state, enliven its breadth of communities, ensure lifelong learning in the arts for all Nevadans, and to encourage public and private support for the arts. For more information visit: nvartscouncil.org.
About the Nevada Poet Laureate Program: The Nevada Poet Laureate is a Governor appointed position. The Nevada Arts Council oversees the poet laureate selection process and submits qualified individuals to the Governor for final review and appointment. The role of the poet laureate is to propagate the art of poetry and encourage literacy and learning throughout the state.
About the HC@gbc: The Humanities Center at Great Basin College (HC@gbc) seeks to collect, curate, and cultivate the humanities for rural Nevada. At the heart of the HC@gbc are the core skills and habits of mind which the humanities encourage and promote: critical and creative thinking, communication, technological understanding, and personal and cultural awareness. For more information about the Humanities Center at GBC visit: humanities.gbcnv.edu.
About Great Basin College: Great Basin College enriches people’s lives by providing student-centered, post-secondary education to rural Nevada. Educational, cultural, and related economic needs of the multicounty service area are met through programs of university transfer, applied science and technology, business and industry partnerships, developmental education, community service, and student support services in conjunction with certificates and associate and select baccalaureate degrees. Learn more at: gbcnv.edu.
About The Western Folklife Center: The Western Folklife Center celebrates the ingenuity and creativity of life in the rural West. For four decades, the nonprofit organization has worked with world-class and up-and-coming artists, artisans, musicians, poets, storytellers, craftspersons, creatives, and community members who honor the land and the realities of rural life. The nonprofit is well known as the producer of the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Their other year-round programming and initiatives give voice to traditional and dynamic cultures of the American West. Learn more at: westernfolklife.org.