YVC Library hosts award-winning poet Joanna Thomas

Joanna Thomas, winner of the 2022 Open Country Chapbook Prize, will present the lecture “Body of Work: Ways to Structure a Poetry Chapbook,” at the Yakima Valley College Raymond Hall Library on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, from noon-1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Her winning chapbook, [ache] [blur] [cut]: sonnets, chosen by guest judge Melissa Kwasny, is forthcoming this month from Open Country Press in Helena, Mon., and is available to order online. According to Kwasny, the poems in this chapbook are “…chock full of sonic and poetic antics: pun, anagram, outrageous simile, literary allusion and in-joke, internal rhyme, cliché phrase, archaic words, and a flexible, quicksilver rhythm.”

Thomas, who resides in Ellensburg, has been a recipient of generous funding for her work from Washington State Artist Trust, Allied Arts Foundation and Ellensburg Arts Commission. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including “WA129: Poets of Washington” (Sage Hill Press, 2017) and “I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State” (Empty Bowl Press, 2023), selected by Rena Priest, Washington State Poet Laureate 2021-2023.

Press Release Contacts:
Joanna Thomas / inlandpoetry@gmail.com
Sam Faulk / samuelfaulk@yvcc.edu / 509.574.4985