NCWN-West member Kenneth Chamblee's biography in poems "The Best Material for the Artist in the World" has won the Western Heritage Poetry Book Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
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| Ken Chamblee |
The book is a collection of poems which follow the life of Albert Bierstadt, a 19th-century landscape painter of the American West. The poems "celebrate the timeless spledor of Bierstadt's work through the witness of many voices and points of view... bringing us into intimate contact with the art," according to
New York Times bestselling author Robert Morgan.
"A work of brilliance and depth," Bob Ross, author of "Billy Above the Roofs" said of Chamblee's work, adding, the poems are sober, evocative, and respectful, and they overflow with their own penetrating light."
Bob Joly, director of St. Johnsbury Athenaeum says the poems bring Bierstadt, his contemporaries, the West, and our notions of the painter and his work to full illumination.
The Western Heritage Awards honors individuals who have made significant contributions to Western heritage through creative works in literature, music, television and film that share the great stories of the American West. Honorees will be presented with a Wrangler award during the 63rd Western Heritage Awards dinner held at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum on April 13, 2024.
