ISU hosts Poet Kerri Webster as Dolsen Visiting Writer

Idaho State University's Department of English and Philosophy is pleased to announce that Idaho’s Writer in Residence, Kerri Webster, will visit ISU October 3-4, 2024 as the annual Dolsen Visiting Writer. During her visit, Webster will hold a public poetry reading and a generative writing workshop open to ISU students.

On Thursday, Oct. 3, at 5 p.m. in the Little Wood River Room (Pond Student Union Building), Webster will read from her most recent book, Lapis, followed by a Q&A session. The reading is free and the public is encouraged to attend. 

Lapis (Wesleyan, 2022) investigates grief in the wake of the deaths of a mother, a friend, and a mentor. The book takes its title from a component, lapis lazuli, of the ultramarine paint once used in the production of sacred texts. In an interview with Wesleyan University Press, Webster comments, “I read an article about a 1,000-year-old nun’s skeleton found with lapis lodged in the gums, a sign that she had worked on church manuscripts, work generally thought to be the province of monks. Lapis . . . in the book is a metaphor for communicating with the dead, but also for women’s place within the grieving process and as recorder of the dead’s lives—sacred work.” A Publisher’s Weekly review states that “Webster’s expert use of forum and evocative vision make [Lapis] affecting and memorable.” Copies of Webster’s books will be available for purchase after the reading. 

Webster is the author of three additional poetry collections: The Trailhead (Wesleyan, 2018), Grand & Arsenal (University of Iowa Press, 2012), and We Do Not Eat Our Hearts Alone (University of Georgia Press, 2005). She is also a recipient of the 2011 Whiting Award, the Alice Fay di Castagnola award from the Poetry Society of America, the Lucille Medwick Award, the Lynda Hull Memorial Prize, and an Alexa Rose Foundation Grant. Her work has appeared in a number of journals including the Los Angeles Review, Boston Review, Poetry, Kenyon Review, and American Poet. Webster was a lecturer in MFA program at Boise State University through 2022, when she stepped down to pursue other work. She is currently Idaho’s Writer in Residence, which the Idaho Commission on the Arts describes as “an ambassador for the literary arts [who] encourages meaningful engagement with the written word, and promotes the importance of creative writing to educate, illuminate, and inspire.”

On Friday, Oct.4 at 2 p.m., Webster will hold a generative writing workshop in Liberal Arts 273. The workshop is open to all ISU students. No advance preparation is required; attend ready to engage in a creative writing prompt. 

Webster’s reading is a part of the Dolsen Visiting Writer Series, in which the Department of English and Philosophy annually hosts a visiting creative writer for a public reading and educational activities. The series is supported by an endowment established by Tom Neel, an alumnus of ISU who earned his B.A. in English with minors in French and Philosophy in 1987. Mr. Neel established the Dolsen Visiting Writer Event Endowment to honor the mentorship, friendship, and respect between him and Professor Arthur Dolsen and his late wife, Marijana, and their daughter, Daria. Dolsen is Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literatures at Idaho State University, where he taught courses in Latin, Russian, and French.