Contact: Kathy Johnson

"As Kentuckians, we too often underestimate our state and our culture. This event celebrates Kentucky's excellence in creative writing in general, and in poetry in particular. The public reading on Saturday night will be both a treat for listeners and a chance for everyone to celebrate Kentucky's literary culture."

-- Dan Rowland,
director,
UK Gaines Center for the Humanities

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 10, 2004) -- For the first time all three of the recent Kentucky recipients of the Yale Younger Poets prize will come together for the annual Bale Boone Symposium, an event that commemorates the life and work of Joy Bale Boone, Kentucky’s late poet laureate and long time patron of the arts. The symposium is March 5 and 6.

The Yale Younger Poets prize is the oldest annual literary award in the United States. In the last decade, three Kentuckians have won the prize. Maurice Manning won in 2000 for “Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions;” Davis McCombs won in 1999 for “Ultima Thule;” and Tony Crunk won in 1994 for “Living in the Resurrection.”

The free symposium, sponsored by the University of Kentucky Gaines Center for the Humanities, begins at 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 5, with a welcome reception and book signing at Black Swan Books on East Maxwell Street in Lexington. A writers’ discussion, lunch, and a poetry workshop will take place from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, March 6, at the Gaines Center for the Humanities at 218 East Maxwell St.

The Yale Younger Poets Reading is scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday in Memorial Hall at UK, followed by a 9 p.m. reception at Ann Tower Gallery on East Main Street in Lexington.

"As Kentuckians, we too often underestimate our state and our culture. This event celebrates Kentucky's excellence in creative writing in general, and in poetry in particular,” said Dan Rowland, director of the Gaines Center. “The public reading on Saturday night will be both a treat for listeners and a chance for everyone to celebrate Kentucky's literary culture."

The morning and afternoon sessions of the symposium are by registration. The registration deadline is Feb. 20. The book signing, reading and receptions are open to the public. For more information or to make reservations for the free symposium, call the Gaines Center at (859) 257-1537.