Paisley Rekdal is the author of four books of nonfiction, and seven books of poetry, including Nightingale, Appropriate: A Provocation, and, most recently, West: A Translation, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She is the editor and creator of the digital archive projects West, Mapping Literary Utah, and Mapping Salt Lake City. Her work has received the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes, the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and various state arts council awards. The former Utah poet laureate, she teaches at the University of Utah where she directs the American West Center.  

Originally from Seattle, Rekdal earned a BA from the University of Washington, an MA from the University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her work ranges widely in subject as her poems and essays tackle history, immigration, literature, pedagogy, and race, among many other things. In West: A Translation, Rekdal presents a hybrid collection of poems and essays that draw together the building of the transcontinental railroad and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1867, all through a character by character examination of a poem left anonymously by a Chinese immigrant on Angel Island. In her most recent book of nonfiction, Appropriate: A Provocation, Rekdal explores the notion of cultural appropriation and what it means for writers in terms of power, authorial provilege, and race. Her latest book, Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens: On Reading Poetry, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton in late 2024. 

GV Arts Celebration: Poetry Night with Paisley Rekdal

Thursday, October 24, 2024, 7:00 pm Free
A book signing will follow the presentation
Wealthy Theatre - 1130 Wealthy Street SE 
INT 100/201 Approved

Poet Paisley Rekdal tackles history, immigration, literature, pedagogy, and race in her work. An author of four books of nonfiction, and seven books of poetry, she has been longlisted for the National Book Award and won the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In West: A Translation, Rekdal presents poems and essays that draw together the building of the transcontinental railroad and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1867, all through a character-by-character examination of a poem left anonymously by a Chinese immigrant on Angel Island. Her latest book, Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens: On Reading Poetry, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton in late 2024. 

GVSU Poetry Night has a tradition of bringing some of the most celebrated and distinguished poets to enlighten and entertain. One of the largest poetry reading series in the state thanks to the generosity of donors and the university, Poetry Night events are always free and open to the public. A book signing will follow the presentation.