North Arkansas College’s annual Visiting Poet Series is excited to host Dr. Phillip Howerton at 11:30 AM, March 6, 2025 in the college’s library on the south campus, 1515 Pioneer Dr.
Join us for poetry and discussion exploring our Ozarks.
Refreshments will be served.
Dr. Phillip Howerton was brought up on a small dairy farm in southern Dallas County, Missouri, near where his ancestors settled in the 1830s. After spending several years as a milk truck driver, beef farmer, and production worker, he earned degrees in English, history, and education from Drury University and a doctorate in American literature and rhetoric and composition from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
He has taught English at colleges and universities in the Ozarks for more than twenty-five years, including six years at North Arkansas College. He is a co-founder and co-editor of Cave Region Review, and his poetry, essays, and book reviews have appeared in numerous magazines and journals.
Golden Antelope Press published his poetry collection, The History of Tree Roots in 2015 and his Gods of Four Mile Creek in 2023. The University of Arkansas Press released his anthology, The Literature of the Ozarks, in 2019, a project for which he received the 2019 Missouri Literary Award from the Missouri Library Association. He has also served as publisher and/or editor of nine other books.
Much of Dr. Howerton’s poetry explores themes of the rural Ozarks, such as the loss of small communities, the influence of folkways and traditions, the sense of place and displacement, and our relationship with nature.