The Pennyroyal Arts Council has received Hopkinsville’s ninth Big Read grant from the National Endowment for the Arts — a $20,000 award that will support a community read of “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” a book of poetry by Ross Gay.
The community read will run from Sept. 28 to Nov. 11. (See the full calendar of scheduled events here.)
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“We are thrilled to receive our ninth NEA Big Read grant,” Margaret Prim, the arts council’s executive director, said in a press release. “The Big Read partners will engage the community in over 30 activities and programs.”
Published in 2015, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. It was a National Book Award finalist.
“These are accessible, alive poems that give one the sense of sitting and talking in the poet’s kitchen. Often vulnerable and self-conscious in tone, they dig deep in the dirt of memory and unearth powerful images,” a reviewer for Booklist wrote. “… Gay embraces the natural cycles of life and death as only an introspective gardener and accomplished poet can.”
NEA’s Big Read, in partnership with Arts Midwest, seeks to “broaden our understanding of our world, our community and ourselves through the power of a shared reading experience.”
Hoptown Chronicle is one of the community partners that helps the arts council create and put on events in support of the book chosen for Big Read.
Planters Bank is the corporate book sponsor and covers the expense of supplying hundreds of copies of the book to the community.
The other partners include the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County, Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library, Christian County Public Schools, Hopkinsville Community College, the Human Rights Commission, Christian County Literacy Council, city and county government, Hopkinsville Visitors Center, Jeffers Bend Environmental Center, Hopkinsville Art Guild, Corner Coffeehouse and Hopkinsville Brewing Co.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
