SILS student, local poet laureate, wins Triangle Arts Award

Patrick Herron, a master’s candidate in information science at SILS, has been awarded a Triangle Arts Award by The Independent Weekly. Awarded annually by the Triangle newspaper, the awards honor people and projects that illustrate the creative spirit of the Triangle’s arts communities.

Herron, a SILS student since 2003, is no stranger to the local arts scene. He recently finished a two year stint as poet laureate for Carrboro, N.C., having transformed the office into a vital community role. Herron was instrumental in organizing the Carrboro Poetry Festival, an event that attracted 39 locally, nationally and internationally renowned poets and catapulted the Triangle into one of the most talked about regions for innovative poetry.

Herron’s first book, The American Godwar Complex, also was published recently by BlazeVOX. The book, like much of Herron’s poetry, directly engages the current political climate. Local poet Ken Rumble, who also won an Indy this year, says of Herron, “It is Herron’s passion, whether expressed in his poems as anger or fear, that makes Patrick such a worthy and dedicated advocate of poetry and authentic human interaction.”

As a master’s student at SILS, Herron studies text-based discovery and develops text mining systems. More information on Herron and the Triangle Arts Awards can be found at http://indyweek.com/durham/2005-07-13/cover8.html