{"id":9538,"date":"2019-02-09T21:34:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T05:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=9538"},"modified":"2019-02-09T21:34:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T05:34:36","slug":"guest-poet-todd-davis-gives-a-poetry-reading-at-wou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/guest-poet-todd-davis-gives-a-poetry-reading-at-wou\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest poet Todd Davis gives a poetry reading at WOU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chrys Weedon<\/strong> | Entertainment Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Born to two farmers from Kentucky and Virginia, Todd Davis grew up working beside his father as his veterinarian assistant and bonding over poetry. Today, Davis lives in Tipton, Pennsylvania and teaches creative writing, American literature and environmental studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He spends much of his time outside, in the field collecting data to fuel his poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Davis has written six full-length poetry collections, the most recent of which is titled \u201cNative Species.\u201d Davis writes of the visceral, potent habits of nature and often utilizes memory to tell his stories.<\/span><\/p>\n

Davis started writing poetry when he entered college. Since then, according to Davis\u2019s website, todddavis.com<\/a>, over 300 of his poems have been published in a variety of magazines, including American Poetry Review and Poetry Daily. On Feb 4, in Hamersly Library room 107, Davis gave a poetry reading that was open to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDeath is something I\u2019ve always written towards in my poems, trying to make peace with it,\u201d said Davis as he prefaced a poem he read called \u201cHomily.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Half sermon, half poetry reading, Davis\u2019s event was incredibly silent, reflecting how his words captured the attention of Hamersly 107, a room packed with onlookers. His poems drew inspiration from many different sources, such as John Coltrane, Judeo-Christian theology, James Wright and his own family and students.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his poetry, Davis faces many questions, like \u201care humans an invasive species?\u201d, \u201chow will we give our bodies back to the Earth when we die?\u201d and \u201cis death really an end or a transformation?\u201d But these complex ideas are translated through simple language, bringing an accessibility to Davis\u2019s poetry that some other, more traditional poets may avoid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Davis left the crowd with a poem that he recited as a blessing: \u201cBeing a man who has seen no angels, and who at times doubts what he\u2019s been told in church, I\u2019ll simply ask what the poet asked: that God would make this world as beautiful to you as it has been to me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chrys Weedon | Entertainment Editor Born to two farmers from Kentucky and Virginia, Todd Davis grew up working beside his father as his veterinarian assistant and bonding over poetry. Today, Davis lives in Tipton, Pennsylvania and teaches creative writing, American literature and environmental studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He spends much of his time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":9539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}