by Gerri Peterson
Nebraska State Poet Matt Mason will be in Mullen next Wednesday, Sept. 20 and will be doing a reading at the Mullen Arts Center at 6:00 p.m. with Lyn Messersmith.
Mason has the goal of doing at least one poetry event in all of Nebraska’s 93 counties, with this visit knocking out Hooker County. He has about 30 counties left.
Mason has worked on cultural programs for the U.S. State Department in Botswana, Romania, Nepal and Belarus.
He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Nebraska Arts Council.
His work can be found in The New York Times, on NPR’s Morning Edition, in American Life in Poetry and more.
Mason’s fifth book, Rock Stars, was released by Button Poetry earlier this month.
Mason is based out of Omaha with his wife, the poet Sarah McKinstry-Brown, and daughters Sophia and Lucia.
Mason is the 2019-2024 Nebraska State Poet. According to the Humanities Nebraska website, “The Nebraska State Poet is a designation that recognizes and honors a Nebraska poet of exceptional talent and accomplishment. The State Poet serves a five-year renewable term as an advocate for poetry, literacy, and literature in Nebraska.
The duties of the State Poet include giving public presentations and readings, leading workshops and discussions, and providing other outreach in schools, libraries, literary festivals, and various venues in rural and urban communities throughout the state. To accomplish this, the State Poet joins with the Nebraska Art Council’s Nebraska Touring Program and the Humanities Nebraska Speakers Bureau.
The first poet to hold the position of Nebraska State Poet was William Kloefkorn, who served for 29 years, until his death in May 2011.”
Mason said he had also been a finalist for the 2013-2019 Nebraska State Poet, but it wasn’t something he thought he’d get.
“It’s still odd, as when someone says ‘State Poet’ I still think they mean Bill Kloefkorn - who was the State Poet when I was coming up in the poetry world. I was definitely interested, as it’s an incredible honor, but it was still hard to see myself selected when Nebraska has so many worthy poets.”
Mason’s first poem was published in his college’s literary magazine in about 1988. It was about Marlin Perkins and Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. His first book came out in 2006 and won the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry.
Mason said he has been a big fan of local poet Lyn Messersmith for a long time and has seen her read a couple times.
At next week’s event, Messersmith will be sharing poems from several of her books, as well as a couple from the Humanities programs.
Her biography says, “Messersmith is a newspaper columnist, free-lance writer and retired rancher. She’s fed a lot of hungry cowhands, been one herself, and became liberated the day she had to saddle her own horse. When she worked in the field of mental health, her family claimed she was right where she belonged, so she got even by writing poems about them. She has traveled extensively with her friend Deb Nolting to present programs and workshops for Humanities Nebraska.”
