Sounding Our Place with Debra Marquart

Join us at the Orange City Public Library on Thursday, September 29 at 6 pm for a musical performance and poetry reading for all ages with Iowa’s Poet Laureate Debra Marquart. Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and Iowa’s Poet Laureate.

Sounding Our Place is a proposed series of experiential literary events that pair an interest in place, the natural world, and environmental issues with poetry/storytelling, songwriting, and creative writing workshops. The events will be planned around the state of Iowa to create partnerships between young writers from local schools and environmental and conservation organizations, designed to reach communities in the rural corners and urban areas of the state that do not generally receive attention in arts programming. The events bring communities together in an engaged conversation about the importance of understanding place and issues of the environment, as well as nurturing the creative and expressive arts.

While agriculture is Iowa’s primary industry, the state embodies a varied landscape—gorgeous stretches of farm fields punctuated by rolling woodlands, thriving small towns, and vibrant urban areas. This project asks the question: what are the joys and gripes, issues and historical complexities, rhythms, and poetries unique to the place where you live?

The event is sponsored by Orange City Arts, Orange City Public Library, and The Academy of American Poets (Poets Laureate Fellowship)