Georgia Historical Society

Affiliate Chapter Event

Cherokee County Historical Society's

Historic Preservation Awards Banquet

Featured Speaker – David Bottoms, Georgia Poet Laureate

Friday, April 17, 2009, 7:00 pm

Northside Hospital Cherokee Conference Center

On Friday, April 17, 2009 the Cherokee County Historical Society will honor 4 individuals and businesses for their work to preserve historic structures in Cherokee County. In addition to recognizing these preservation efforts, the Historical Society is pleased to welcome Georgia Poet Laureate, David Bottoms, as the event's featured speaker. Mr. Bottoms was born in Canton in 1949. His first book, Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump, was selected by Robert Penn Warren as winner of the 1979 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. His poems have appeared widely in magazines such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Paris Review, and Poetry, as well as in over fifty anthologies and textbooks. He is the author of six other books of poetry, most recently Waltzing through the Endtime, as well as two novels. Among his many other awards are the Levinson and the Frederick Bock prizes from Poetry magazine, an Ingram Merrill Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Mr. Bottoms has given over 200 readings and lectures in colleges and universities across the country, as well as the Guggenheim Museum, The Library of Congress, and The American Academy in Rome. He has been Richard Hugo Poet-in-Residence at the University of Montana, the Ferrol Sams Distinguished Writer at Mercer University, and currently holds the Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters at Georgia State University. Since 2000, he has served as Poet Laureate of Georgia. This year he was elected into the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame.

This event represents Mr. Bottom's first speaking engagement in Cherokee County. He will discuss his experiences growing up in Canton and read a few of his poems. The event is open to the public, and tickets may be purchased for $22 online at www.rockbarn.org or by calling 770.345.3288.