Dragons & Rayguns: Book Reading with the Iowa Poet Laureate

Thursday, 06 Mar 2025 at 5:00 pm – Christian Petersen Art Museum, 1017 Morrill Hall

Vince Gotera is the Poet Laureate of Iowa and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he taught for almost 30 years. He was editor of the North American Review (2000-2016) and Star*Line, the print journal of the International Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (2017-2020). His poetry awards include a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, The Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in Poetry, and an Academy of American Poets Prize, among others. Poetry collections include "Dragonfly," "Ghost Wars," "Fighting Kite," "The Coolest Month," and "Dragons & Rayguns."Recent poems appeared in Dreams & Nightmares, The Ekphrastic Review, Failed Haiku, The MacGuffin, Philippines Graphic (Philippines), Rattle, Rosebud, The Wild Word (Germany), Yellow Medicine Review, and the anthologies Multiverse (UK), Dear America, and Hay(na)ku 15. Of his most recent publication, "Dragons & Rayguns," the esteemed poet Bryan Thao Worra, past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, writes, “Witty and profound, playful and inviting, these poems are a delight, whether dealing with rocket ships and super science to alien shores, Filipino myth, and human loss and wonder.”Note: This lecture will not be recorded. 

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Vince Gotera is the Poet Laureate of Iowa and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he taught for almost 30 years. He was editor of the North American Review (2000-2016) and Star*Line, the print journal of the International Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (2017-2020). His poetry awards include a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, The Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in Poetry, and an Academy of American Poets Prize, among others. Poetry collections include "Dragonfly," "Ghost Wars," "Fighting Kite," "The Coolest Month," and "Dragons & Rayguns."Recent poems appeared in Dreams & Nightmares, The Ekphrastic Review, Failed Haiku, The MacGuffin, Philippines Graphic (Philippines), Rattle, Rosebud, The Wild Word (Germany), Yellow Medicine Review, and the anthologies Multiverse (UK), Dear America, and Hay(na)ku 15. Of his most recent publication, "Dragons & Rayguns," the esteemed poet Bryan Thao Worra, past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, writes, “Witty and profound, playful and inviting, these poems are a delight, whether dealing with rocket ships and super science to alien shores, Filipino myth, and human loss and wonder.”Note: This lecture will not be recorded.