Poet Laureate David Allan Evans in Madison Monday!

Poetry! Manly poetry!

The Madison Area Arts Council is bringing South Dakota poet laureate* David Allan Evans to town on Monday, March 29. Evans will offer a presentation on "Midwestern Themes in Art and Literature." He'll also sign copies of his latest book of poems, This Water, These Rocks. And if you ask really nicely, he might even read a poem or two, like his classic "Pole Vaulter."

Evans himself was a pole vaulter before he was a poet. He attended Augustana College on a full-ride football scholarship. He taught for years at SDSU, teaching writing and poetry to honyockers like me who derived a bit too much mirth from the last line of Maxine Kumin's "Excrement Poem."

Monday night—show starts at 6 p.m. at the Madison Public Library. Be there for some heavy-hitting poetry and intelligent conversation about art, literature, and our land!

*laureate: that's an honored person, not a lasso.