St. Louis Public Library

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POET TED MATHYS SPENDS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH "IN THE STACKS" AT ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY'S CENTRAL LIBRARY

In celebration of National Poetry Month 2016, the St. Louis Public Library plays host to poet Ted Mathys, author of Null Set (2015), The Spoils (2009), and Forge (2005), as a Writer-In-Residence this spring. Through routine blog dispatche sand a public performance, Mathys will help shine a light on the value, breadth, and accessibility of the St. Louis Public Library's Special Collections area at Central Library.

On April 20 in Central Library's Carnegie Room, 1301 Olive St. at 7 p.m., Mathys reads original work based on the William Reedy archives and engage in conversation with Special Collections staff.  Library staff will also provide background on Reedy's archive and personal book collection. The event is FREE and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first served basis.

Mathys plans to focus his time on the Library's archives of William Marion Reedy, the so-called "Literary Boss of the Midwest" and the editor of Reedy's Mirror, a prominent St. Louis-based literature, politics, and social gossip magazine.  From 1891 to 1920 the "Literary Boss of the Midwest," William Marion Reedy, ran a literature, politics, and social gossip magazine in St. Louis called The Mirror that rivaled Harriet Monroe's Poetry in Chicago and had a larger national distribution than either the Atlantic Monthly or The Nation.  Raised in North St. Louis and a graduate of Saint Louis University, Reedy was a prominent critic, provocative social figure, and massive influence on the St. Louis literary scene, publishing writers such as Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, Sara Teasdale, Ezra Pound, Theodore Dreiser, and more. The St. Louis Public Library's Special Collections contains both Reedy's personal library as well as the full run of Reedy's Mirror magazine.

         Mathys is spending approximately 25 hours in the Library's Stacks and countless hours creating new poetry based on his researched findings.

Originally from Ohio, Mathys holds an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received the John C. Schupes Fellowship for Excellence in Poetry; and an MA in international environmental policy from Tufts University. He lives in St. Louis, where he is Creative Writer-In-Residence at Saint Louis University and co-curates the Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts Poetry Series.

Mathys' residency and presentation are part of "In The Stacks," a program developed by Minneapolis-based publisher Coffee House Press. The two-year-old program has placed writers and artists in residencies at the Walker Art Center, American Craft Council, Quatrefoil Library, Poets House, American Swedish Institute, The Bakken Museum, and the Pacifica Institue's OPUS Archives to create new bodies of work and to encourage artists and the general public to think about libraries as creative spaces.

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