Knute Skinner was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in nearby Webster Groves. He attended college at Culver-Stockton and at the University of Northern Colorado, where he received a BA in speech and drama. He then did graduate work at Middlebury College and at the University of Iowa, where he was also an instructor in the English Department.
After receiving a PhD in English, Skinner turned his back on job offers, left Iowa, and headed off to spend the rest of his life on the Canary Islands. Instead, after two years travelling around Europe, he purchased a cottage in rural Ireland. There, when not writing poems, he worked in a turf bog and grew vegetables for the local market. He also began teaching part of each year at Western Washington University in the US. In 2000 he retired from teaching and now, along with his spouse, Edna Faye Kiel, is resident year round in Killaspuglonane, County Clare. He occasionally conducts poetry writing workshops, and he is currently at work on a new collection of poems.
His first book of poetry, Stranger with a Watch, appeared in 1965 and contained early poems written in Iowa. His second collection, A Close Sky over Killaspuglonane (1968), showed the influence of the people and the landscape of rural Clare. Since then, he has published seven more books and six chapbooks. His poems, which have appeared widely in serial publications in Ireland, England, Australia and North America, show a variety of styles, including both free and formal verse. Two collections, The Bears and What Trudy Knows, demonstrate a marked departure from his usual lyric mode, as the poems are all fictional narratives highlighting brief moments in the lives of the imagined narrators. In 2002 Salmon Publishing brought out his most recent collection, Stretches. His collected poems is due out shortly from Salmon.
Skinner founded the Signpost Press, a nonprofit corporation devoted to publishing contemporary literature, and he was a founder and editor of the Bellingham Review. He was awarded a fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts and has received residencies from the Huntington Hartford Foundation, The Millay Colony for the Arts, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and Fundación Valparaíso. He has taught numerous poetry writing workshops in the United States and in Ireland.
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The White House Poetry Revival has being going now for over four years. Every Wednesday the famous old world bar is transformed into a centre of culture as poets recite their latest work. Barney Sheehan and Dominic Taylor , the people behind the revival of poetry at the White House, continue to attract the best of Irish and International poetry to Limerick. The reading has provided an open, supportive venue for countless poets to perform their work, and has fostered a community of poetry. Over the last four years the reading has grown, evolved and matured. We are proud to have provided an open-mic for poets from all over Ireland, Europe and the world: from Buddy Wakefield to Greg Delanty to hundred of others you have never heard, but should have. The reading continues to grow and change and we would invite you to come down, to listen - and should the mood strike you - to speak.
The White House Poets would like to acknowledge the involvement of the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, Foras na Gaeilge, Limerick City Council, http://www.limerick.com/ and the White House Bar for their continued support, all of whom helped make the White House one of the pre eminent venues for poetry in Ireland. As usual the reading is preceded by an open mic session in which anyone who wishes to read is invited to do so. Complementary finger food is provided and proceeding commence at 9.00 pm.
For Further Information contact:
Barney Sheehan at 086 8657494 or Dominic Taylor at 087 2996409.
Email whitehousepoets@eircom.net Website http://www.limerick.com/whitehousepoets/ Blog http://whitehousepoets.blogspot.com/ Podcast: http://whitehousepoets.libsyn.com/
MySpace http://www.myspace.com/thewhitehousepoets
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/whitehousepoets
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The White House Poetry Revival, Limerick, Irelandby whitehousepoets1,450 views
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