University Press Author's Poems to Be Dramatized by Arkansas Rep

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark – Jo McDougall, author of two University of Arkansas Press poetry collections, will have her poetry dramatized by the Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s SecondStage in Little Rock. The production, titled “Towns Facing Railroads,” will debut Friday night, Jan. 20, and run until Feb. 5. The dramatic work for the stage draws on a number of poems in McDougall’s collections, including the two University of Arkansas Press titles, “Towns Facing Railroads,” published in 1991, and “From Darkening Porches,” published in 1996.

Intertwined with music and verse, the dramatic work provides an intimate, sometimes haunting look at the joys and sorrows of people who live in small towns. McDougall herself grew up on a rice farm in the Arkansas Delta, near DeWitt. The play is directed by Eve Adamson, who has directed such works as “Othello” and “All the King’s Men,” and is performed by three veteran actors, Nancy Eyermann, Joseph Graves, and JoAnn Johnson, who play the three characters - Girl, Man, and Woman.

McDougall’s poetry has received wide acclaim. In 2000 she won the Porter Prize given annually to an Arkansas writer for a body of work. Miller Williams says her poems “seem so clean and clear at first reading I want to hold them up to a window to let them catch light.” Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Howard Nemerov describes her poems as “artful work, and serious work, and I much admire their spare notation and epigrammatic concisions.” Noted poet Kelly Cherry compares her poems to “Midwestern country roads at night . ... [They are] expansive, comprehensive, beautiful, witty, and unlike anyone else.” While past University of Arkansas professor and noted poet C. D. Wright says that McDougall “writes a lean stoic line, each poem makes its mark, like spit.”

Jo McDougall will be in attendance at each performance and will be signing copies of her books. She will also give four poetry readings at the Theatre’s Club Mezz on Jan. 22, 26, and 29. McDougall lives in Pittsburgh, Kan.