UA Press and KUAF Celebrate National Poetry Month with the 'Poetry Minute'

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas Press and local NPR affiliate KUAF have teamed up for National Poetry Month with an April initiative called the Poetry Minute.

Every day in April, KUAF will air a poem read by a poetry enthusiast with a Northwest Arkansas connection. Participants were chosen by the University of Arkansas Press to represent a wide range of personalities and affiliations, including Fayetteville mayor Lioneld Jordan, Keith Grimwood of the band Trout Fishing in America, Susan Young of the Shiloh Museum, Razorback "super-fan" Hognoxious, and former standout Razorback basketball player Scotty Thurman.

Also represented are local writers, professors from the University of Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas Community College, the Fayetteville Public Library, the Ozark Literacy Council, Ozark Poets and Writers Collective, the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology, the Walton Arts Center, and more.

"We've had such a great time here at the press helping KUAF put together the poetry minute," said Melissa King, the Press's marketing director. "With KUAF's incredible enthusiasm for the project, the effort has proven to be a substantive and authentic way to encourage members of the community to think about, talk about, listen to, and read poetry."

The segments will air four times a day on KUAF and be archived on the KUAF website, kuaf.com. Pete Hartman, Operations Manager and producer of the Poetry Minutes says, "What's been most fun, for me personally with this project, is that I've been able to meet so many people who are known throughout our region -- from Andrew Kilgore to Hognoxious -- the voices we'll be hearing will be from the full spectrum of our community -- and I like that."

In its 30th year as an NPR affiliate and operating at 91.3FM with a powerful 100,000 watt transmitter, KUAF serves a 14-county area of west and northwest Arkansas, parts of eastern Oklahoma and southern Missouri, providing the only source of national and international news from NPR as well as a daily local news magazine “Ozarks at Large.”

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About the University of Arkansas Press: The University of Arkansas Press was cofounded by the poet Miller Williams, who served as the Press's first director. As director, Miller Williams established a strong legacy of poetry and published U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins's first book of poems, The Apple that Astonished Paris. The Press awards an annual $5,000 prize named for Miller Williams. The Miller Williams Poetry Series is currently edited by Billy Collins.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.