MSU Alumni releases Poetry Collection

Allen Braden, a 1997 Master's of Fine Arts graduate from McNeese, recently released his debut poetry collection, A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood.  Part of the VQR Poetry Series, this book was published by the University of Georgia Press and draws heavily on Braden's experiences being raised on a family farm near Yakima, Washington. 

Allen Braden has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (which came with a $20,000 award!), an Artist Trust fellowship, an Artist Trust grant, the Emerging Writers Prize from Witness magazine, the Grolier Poetry Prize and other honors. He has published poems in top journals such as Prairie Schooner, Georgia Review and the New Orleans Review. Braden is the former poet-in-residence at the Art Institute of Chicago and currently teaches at Tacoma Community College in Washington state.

Braden will be reading from this book as part of the Banners Series on April 30 at 7 p.m. in the Business Conference Center at McNeese.