HV/SV Spotlight: Meet the 2025 Missouri Poet Laureate, Justin Hamm, Through Poems and Photographs
Schedule
Tue Nov 18 2025 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm
UTC-06:00Location
106 Orr St, 65201 | Columbia, MO
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Please join us at Orr Street Studios for an illuminating evening of discussion focusing on the "Midwestern aesthetic" in the poetry and photography of the newly-minted Missouri Poet Laureate (2025-2027), Justin Hamm.Originally from the flatlands of central Illinois, Justin Hamm now lives near Twain territory in Missouri. He is the author of five books of poetry, O Death, Drinking Guinness With the Dead: Poems 2007-2021, The Inheritance, American Ephemeral, and Lessons in Ruin, and a book of photographs entitled Midwestern. He is also the creator of Poet Baseball Cards and the founding editor of the museum of americana.
Justin was chosen as a 2024 & 2022 Woody Guthrie Poet, a 2020 Missouri Arts Council Featured Artist, a finalist for the 2018 River Styx International Poetry Prize, and the winner of the 2014 Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. In 2022 he delivered a performance entitled “The American Midwest: a Story in Poems” at TEDx Oshkosh. The recording can be viewed on YouTube. In 2019, Justin’s poem “Goodbye, Sancho Panza” was studied by approximately 50,000 students worldwide as a part of the World Scholar’s Cup curriculum.
Justin’s individual poems, stories, photographs, collages, and reviews have appeared in Nimrod International Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Sugar House Review, Verse Daily, Southern Indiana Review, the New Poetry from the Midwest anthology series, and many other publications. Additionally, his award-winning photographs have featured in numerous solo gallery shows. His poetry/photography hybrid exhibition “Midwestern” traveled the Midwest region from 2018-2020.
Justin currently works as an elementary librarian in the small town of Mexico, Missouri, where he lives with his wife, Mel, and their two daughters.
Light refreshments will be provided. FREE to attend. Doors open at 6:30 pm and readings/presentations begin at 7 pm, lasting about 20-30 minutes each, with an intermission; speakers will have time for questions after their presentations.
This event is sponsored by the generous support of the Columbia Office of Cultural Affairs and Orr Street Studios.
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Where is it happening?
106 Orr St, 65201, 106 Orr St, Columbia, MO 65201-4919, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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