New Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Selected

The Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project has selected Susan M. Peiffer to serve as the Pikes Peak Poet Laureate for 2016-2018. Ms. Peiffer will be inaugurated as the 5th Poet Laureate at a free and open to the public event on Sunday, April 24 at 2 pm in the Carnegie Reading Room at Penrose Library.

Susan Peiffer is a published and nationally recognized poet who studied creative writing and theology at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. With graduate degrees from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Susan taught at a private high school in Delaware for six years. As program director of a non-profit in Philadelphia, she had the opportunity to organize a young leader’s program enabling participants to effectively speak their own stories. She coached the Delawhere? Youth Slam Team to the Brave New Voices championship in Oakland, CA. Since relocating to Colorado Springs in 2012, Susan has become deeply invested in the local poetry community. Currently the Program Director of Hear Here Poetry, she has facilitated several workshops and classes on different aspects of writing and performance, was named the RAW Colorado Springs Artist of the Year , and was the recipient of three Pikes Peak Arts Council awards for excellence in performance poetry and leadership. She is an animated and inclusive presenter who readily engages audiences and inspires the unique circumstances into which poems arrive. Susan is eager to continue connecting different facets of the community through the shared experience of crafting words.

The Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project is a partnership of Pikes Peak Library District, the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Radio Station KCME, Pikes Peak Hospice and Palliative Care, Pikes Peak Arts Council, Hear Here Poetry, the Fountain Valley School, the Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District, Pikes Peak Community College and Poetry West.