Press Releases

Oregon’s Poet Laureate, Lawson Inada, to Give Reading
in Tandem with Andrew Schelling

BOULDER, Colo. (April 3, 2009)—In 2006, Lawson Fusao Inada became Oregon’s Poet Laureate, the first person to hold that position since William Stafford 16 years earlier. A third-generation Japanese-American raised in California, he is often hailed as the “grandfather” of Asian-American poetry.

On Saturday, April 11, Inada will give a reading at the Naropa University Performing Arts Center located on the Arapahoe Campus. A reception will be held at 6:30 p.m., and the reading begins at 8 p.m. The event, presented by Naropa’s Writing & Poetics Department, as well as the Office of Diversity, is free and open to the public.

Accompanying Inada will be Naropa’s own Andrew Schelling, who has taught in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics since 1990. A preeminent translator of classical Indian poetry into English, he won the 1992 Academy of American Poets translation award for Dropping the Bow: Poems of Ancient India. His publications include Old Tale Road, Wild Form, Savage Grammar and The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry.

Inada writes about the Japanese internment, the blues, freedom, survival and spirituality. He is the recipient of many distinguished awards and recognitions including a Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA Fellowships, the American Book Award and the John Steinbeck Chair. He is professor emeritus of writing at Southern Oregon University. He is the author of Legends from Camp, Drawing the Line, In This Great Land of Freedom, Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese Internment Experience and more.

Oregon's Poet Laureate program is a collaborative project of the state's five cultural partners: Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Council for the Humanities, Oregon Heritage Commission, Oregon Historical Society and State Historic Preservation Office, with funding from the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, Naropa University is a private, nonprofit, nonsectarian liberal arts institution dedicated to advancing contemplative education.  This approach to learning integrates the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions, helping students know themselves more deeply and engage constructively with others. The university comprises a four-year undergraduate college and graduate programs in the arts, education, environmental leadership, psychology and religious studies.