FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 9, 2008  

BkMk press poet Walter Bargen appointed first Missouri Poet Laureate

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Missouri’s first Poet Laureate, Walter Bargen, appointed January 8, 2008, has published three of his books with UMKC’s BkMk Press.  His most recent BkMk book, The Feast: Prose Poem Sequences, won the William Rockhill Nelson Award for Literary Excellence in Poetry in 2005.

“I’m delighted,” said Robert Stewart, executive editor of BkMk Press and New Letters magazine at UMKC in The Kansas City Star on January 9.  “Walter is a hard-working poet, and he’s a real poet.  The thing that strikes me about [Bargen’s] public performances is the intensity and the passion with which he delivers poems.  I think that’s something people are going to respect and enjoy.”

Bargen, of Ashland, Missouri, and staff member of the Assessment Resource Center at MU-Columbia, will serve as Poet Laureate for the next two years, promoting poetry reading and writing in his tours throughout the state. 

The Feast: Prose Poem Sequences  (ISBN 1-866157-39-1) is $13.95 in trade paperback and available from SPD (Small Press Distribution) in Berkeley, California (www.spdbooks.org), Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, and from other outlets.   

At the Dead Center of Day, a chapbook, (ISBN 1-886157-08-1) is $6.00 and available from BkMk Press, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, and other outlets. 

BkMk Press was founded in 1971 and became part of UMKC in 1983. Financial assistance for BkMk Press is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, by UMKC, and by private donations. Media review copies of Necessary Lies can be requested by calling (816) 235-2558.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), one of four University of Missouri campuses, is a public university serving more than 14,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students.  UMKC engages with the community and economy based on a three-part mission: visual and performing arts, health sciences, and urban affairs.

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