Appalachian Cultural Center announces spring events lineup

^{Appalachian Cultural Center presents “An Evening with Lynn Powell” on March 19.}

(March 5, 2018) – Carson-Newman University presents “An Evening with Lynn Powell” on Monday, March 19 at 7 p.m. The event is sponsored by the University’s Appalachian Cultural Center, and is the first of three events slated in its spring lineup.

Free and open to the public, events will be held in the Appalachian Cultural Center located at 1603 Russell Ave on campus.

Powell, an award winning poet and 1977 C-N alumna, will read from her newest book, “Season of the Second Thought.” The work earned Powell the 2017 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin Press.

The book follows two previous published collections of poetry by Powell that include “Old & New Testaments,” which earned the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award, and “The Zones of Paradise.”

“Lynn Powell’s poetry never fails to astonish, while at the same time the reader feels a resonant familiarity, as if entering a forest or room which had gone forgotten,” championed author Dr. Susan O’Dell Underwood. “We recognize with amazement. Reading her poems for many of us is like coming home after a long absence, seeing the nuances of landscape, family, and community in a revised light.”

Powell is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and has received four Individual Artist Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council (three in poetry and one in nonfiction).

An East Tennessee native, Powell lives with her family in Oberlin, Ohio.

Other spring events include:

• From Play Script to Readers’ Theatre: Re-imagining Jesse Stuart’s “Daughter of the Legend,” Monday, April 9 at 7 p.m.

A readers’ theatre performance of Jesse Stuart’s novel, “Daughter of the Legend,” Drs. Sheridan and Vicki Barker will tell the story of star-crossed lovers in the 1920s who are unable to marry because of ethnic and cultural differences. The performance, adapted by Sheridan Barker, will be preceded by a discussion led by Vickie Barker on Melungeon identity and culture in East Tennessee.

• “Ampersand” Reveal and Celebration, Wednesday, April 18 at 4 p.m.

The afternoon event centers on the unveiling of the 16th Annual Edition of “Ampersand.” Under the direction of Dr. Susan O’Dell Underwood, the publication celebrates the work of student editors, poets, photographers, designers and artists.