What's New!

Susan M. Peiffer was inaugurated as the 5^th Pikes Peak Poet Laureate on April 24, 2016. Susan will serve as Poet Laureate until April 2018.

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 the 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.

Pikes Peak Library District is pleased to announce the following winners of the Jean Ciavonne Poetry Contest:

• Ella Batson, “The Form of a Mystery”
• Sophia DeJoia, “Mountain Gem”
• Dara S. Kurbegov, “Mysteries of Nature”
• Brooke Steinberg, “Mystery Murder”
• Sage Stoecklein, “Mystery?”
• Anna Winslow, “The Mystery of Me”

You can watch the winners read their poems below:

"He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again."
Hamlet (1.2.186)

April 23, 2016 marks the 400^th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, Shakespeare's body of work transcends time and place. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. We're sure it comes as no surprise that PPLD has a large selection of works by The Bard in our collection.

https://pikp.ent.sirsi.net/client/PPLD/search/results?qu=william+shakes…

What's your favorite? Mine's Hamlet. My husband likes Titus Andronicus because it's a bloodbath.