For this final week of National Poetry Month, I’d like to introduce you to the Poet Laureate of Georgia–Mr. Judson Mitcham.
Georgia poet and novelist Judson Mitcham (b. 1948) studied psychology as an undergraduate and earned a Ph.D in psychology from the University of Georgia. His elegiac poems, first-person narratives, explore family relationships, the passing of loved ones, and the Georgia landscape. His collections of poetry include Somewhere in Ecclesiastes (1991), winner of the Devins Award, This April Day (2003), and A Little Salvation: Poems Old and New (2007).
Mitcham is also the author of the novels The Sweet Everlasting (1996) and Sabbath Creek (2004). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Georgia Council for the Arts and has twice won the Townsend Prize for fiction.
Mitcham taught psychology at Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, Georgia, until his retirement. He has since taught creative writing workshops at the University of Georgia, Emory University, and Mercer University. He lives in Macon, Georgia. In 2012, the governor of Georgia named him the state’s poet laureate.*
Please enjoy Mr. Mitcham’s amazing poem, Forever from A Little Salvation
Please enjoy Mr. Mitcham’s poem Night from A Little Salvation
Writing
Poem copyright ©2003 by Anhinga Press. Judson Mitcham’s most recent book of poems is A Little Salvation: Poems Old and New, Univ. of Georgia Press, 2007. Poem originally printed in This April Day, Anhinga Press, 2003; reprinted from The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, 2nd ed., Ed., Michael Simms, Autumn House Press, 2011, by permission of Judson Mitcham and the publisher.
Click here to purchase any of Mr. Mitcham’s phenomenal works. For more information or to contact Mr. Mitcham please contact the GA Council For The Arts and Goodreads.com.
Join me next week when I begin my Summer Series with the award-winning sci-fi show Babylon 5.
Until then,
“Even the simplest poem
May destroy your immunity to human emotions.
All poems must carry a Government warning. Words
Can seriously affect your heart.”
― Elma Mitchell
REFERENCES
* Biography courtesy of The Poetry Foundation
**Videos courtesy of YouTube.com via UGAPress.
