Dr. Dorothy Sutton, Foundation Professor Emeritus of English at Eastern Kentucky University, has been named a “Kentucky Great Writer” by the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.
The honor recognizes Sutton’s “notable literary achievements,” particularly her latest collection of poetry, “Backing into Mountains,” according to Jennifer Mattox, development director of the Center, located at 251 W. Second St. in Lexington.
Each quarter, the Center spotlights three writers. Joining Sutton as Great Writers on this occasion are Normandi Ellis and Steve Rhodes. The public is invited to a free workshop devoted to the trio and led by the Center’s resident writer, Leatha Kendrick, on Tuesday, Feb. 2, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Then, on Tuesday, Feb. 9, the Carnegie Center will host 15- to 20-minute readings by Sutton, Ellis and Rhodes at 7:30 p.m. The event, sponsored by LexArts and Wind Publications, is free and open to the public. Books will be sold for signing and refreshments will be served.
“Backing into Mountains” has gained international prominence since its publication last year. Poems from the collection have been published in such diverse locales as England, Ireland, Wales and Australia. Her poetry was read at the Royal Society in London, and a London composer has set some of her poems to music. A medical school professor at the University of Manitoba uses a Sutton poem to teach her cadaver classes to have reverence for the bodies they work on.
Dublin poet Eileen Casey said recently of Sutton’s work: “The title poem of this collection pays tribute to the tenacity of the bus drivers of Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States, forced to breathtakingly negotiate very difficult terrain. In the same way, Dorothy Sutton takes each poem (and us) from one imaginative location to another, by the sheer force of her deep and intimate knowledge of what it is to be human. The poems are exquisitely crafted, steering through words, like those Appalachian bus drivers, trying to maintain machines that can roll without crashing, hold the young ones back from the edge, carry them all the places they need to go. These poems are a joy to read, in terms of capturing the cadences of lives lived and voices heard in the Kentucky of her childhood, different and yet the same as mine in Ireland. An emotional bridge is formed between Kentucky and the rest of the world, indeed a breathtaking reading experience.”
Sutton taught in EKU’s Department of English and Theatre for more than three decades and served for many years as co-director of the EKU Creative Writing Conference. Her first book of poetry, “Startling Art: Darwin and Matisse,” earned a Finishing Line Press Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination.
