Oklahoma Poet Jeanetta Calhoun Mish Wins Wrangler Award
ALBUQUERQUE: —West End Press author Jeanetta Calhoun Mish has won the 50th annual Western Heritage Award for her book of poetry Work Is Love Made Visible. Mish will be honored at a gala event April 17 at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Work Is Love Made Visible is a book of poems and family photographs that explores the realities of Plains life. An Oklahoma native, Mish returned home after twenty years of traveling to revisit her working class roots. The result was a collection of heartfelt, determined poems that make up Work Is Love Made Visible.
“I am honored that Work Is Love Made Visible was awarded the Wrangler, and I think it may have appealed to the judges because it tells the western stories not often heard, of sharecroppers and truck drivers, Native Americans and poor Scots Irish, women and men whose personal histories are too complex to romanticize.” Mish, a resident of Norman, Oklahoma, holds a Ph.D. in American literature from the University of Oklahoma. She is a founding member of the Woody Guthrie Poets at the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma, and she has been a featured reader at events across the country. Recently, she has published in Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, Oklahoma Today, Crosstimbers, and World Literature Today.
The Western Heritage Awards honor the “legacy of those whose works in literature, music, film and television reflect the significant stories of the American West.” Awardees receive “The Wrangler,” which is an impressive bronze statue by famed Western artist John D. Free of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Along with the category winners, inductees into the Hall of Great Western Performers and the Hall of Great Westerners will be honored at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, one of the world’s largest museums of western heritage and art. Past Wrangler winners include John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, John Ford, and Louis L’Amour. Work Is Love Made Visible is Volume 3 in the New Series from West End Press and is available from booksellers or from UNM Press, distributor for West End press. To order, please call 800-249-7737.
MORE INFO @:
· Wrangler Award Press Release: http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/info/MediaRelease.aspx?ID=266
· Jeanetta Calhoun Mish: —http://www.tonguetiedwoman.com/
