University of Arkansas Press Poet to Read at Open Mouth Reading Series
Jacob Shores-Argüello
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Jacob Shores-Argüello, author of the award-winning collection Paraíso: Poems, will read from his book as part of the Open Mouth Reading Series at 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11, at The Nines, 546 W. Center St., Fayetteville. Books will be available for purchase and signing. The poet Lisa Dordal will also read.
Paraíso was released in December by the University of Arkansas Press, and is the inaugural winner of the CantoMundo Poetry Prize, awarded annually for a book of poetry in English by an America-based Latino/a writer.The book follows the narrator to his late mother’s homeland of Costa Rica, where he embarks on wild cliff-hugging bus rides and mystical expeditions into the cloud forest as he searches for a way to heal after the loss of his mother.
Shores-Argüello, a Costa Rican American poet, fiction writer, and translator, is a graduate of the University of Arkansas Creative Writing MFA program.
In addition to Paraíso, Shores-Argüello is the author of In the Absence of Clocks, which was awarded the 2011 Crab Orchard Series Open Competition, judged by Yusef Komunyakaa. He is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Ukraine, the Dzanc Books ILP International Literature Award, the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship in Provincetown, the Djerassi Resident Artist’s Fellowship, and the Amy Clampitt residency in Lenox, Massachusetts. His work appears in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine and Guernica, among others
Lisa Dordal, who teaches English at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, will read from her recently released collection Mosaic of the Dark, available from Black Lawrence Press.
Open Mouth Reading Series was founded by Molly Bess Rector and M.D. Myers, who are graduates of the U of A program in Creative Writing and Translation. Rector and Myers now curate the series along with J. Bailey Hutchinson and Peter Mason, current creative writing M.F.A. students.
About the University of Arkansas Press: The University of Arkansas Press was founded in 1980 as the book publishing division of the University of Arkansas. A member of the Association of American University Presses, it has as its central and continuing mission the publication of books that serve both the broader academic community and Arkansas and the region.
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.
Contacts
Steve Voorhies, manager of media relations
University Relations
479-575-3583,
voorhies@uark.edu
Melissa King, director of sales and marketing
University of Arkansas Press
479-575-7715,
mak001@uark.edu