Holliday to give talk on Oklahoma poets Laureate Paul Kroeger and Jennie Harris Oliver

The Oklahoma Territorial Museum announced today that it will host a talk on Paul Kroeger, Oklahoma’s second poet laureate and a former citizen of Guthrie, and Jennie Harris Oliver, Oklahoma’s third poet laureate and a former citizen of Fallis, on Thursday, February 26 at 6:30 pm. The event is made possible by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Council.

The talk will be given by Dr. Shawn Holliday, the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, whose book on the Oklahoma poets laureate is forthcoming from Mongrel Empire Press. It is part of a series of talks Holliday is giving entitled “The Oklahoma Poets Laureate: Learning about the State Through Its Poetry.” Holliday intends to use these talks to inform citizens about the history of the Oklahoma poets laureate, including its most important historical figures. He also hopes that this series will allow communities to preserve regional history and local memory.

The talk’s format will include a brief history of the Oklahoma poet laureate position, biographical information on Kroeger and Oliver, a discussion of their relationship to Guthrie and Fallis, and a brief reading of their work followed by a discussion of their poetry. Holliday’s talk on Kroeger and Oliver are the third in the series. Later talks will occur in Claremore and Wewoka.

For more information on the event, readers may contact Dr. Holliday at 580-327-8589 or at spholliday@nwosu.edu.

About the Oklahoma Humanities Council

The Oklahoma Humanities Council (OHC) is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote meaningful public engagement with the humanities—disciplines such as history, literature, film studies, ethics, and philosophy. The humanities offer a deeper understanding of ourselves and others by confronting us with the questions, values, and meanings of the human experience. As the state partner for the National Endowment for the Humanities, OHC brings people together to explore these ideas through programming and community grants that support book groups, exhibits, film festivals, teacher institutes, and more. OHC engages people in their own communities, providing forums for education, critical thinking, and productive civil discourse.