May readings at Elk River Books 
Elk River Arts & Lectures will present free readings in the coming weeks. Here’s a look at the events set to unfold in Livingston.
Painter, sculptor, and rancher Ted Waddell will read from and talk about a new retrospective of his work, Theodore Waddell: My Montana, on Friday, May 12th at 7pm.
Waddell stands as one of the West’s most celebrated contemporary artists. His late modern “landscapes with animals” couple abstract expressionist technique with the creatures — Black Angus cattle, horses, and bison — that populate the high plains and mountain valleys of today’s ranching West.
Edited by Rick Newby, My Montana is richly illustrated with Waddell’s work, and incorporates excerpts from Waddell’s journals and letters, as well as an extensive oral history. The book includes essays celebrating Waddell’s life and art by the Montana curators, critics, scholars, poets and fiction writers who have known him best, including Pat Williams, Greg Keeler, Scott McMillion, William Hjortsberg, Paul Zarzyski and Brian Petersen, among others.
“Theodore Waddell’s vast (and intimate) canvases represent the pinnacle of contemporary Western painting and the telling of his life and work lends rich texture and depth to the evolving narrative of the development of modern and contemporary Western art,” Newby says.
The Helena-based Drumlummon Institute writes, “Ultimately, Theodore Waddell’s works are important, not simply because they bring together disparate traditions but because they stand as emotionally and sensuously resonant works of art that speak of landscapes and animals, life and death, austerity and abundance. They possess, in the words of Seattle Times critic Robin Updike, an ‘immense, poetic dignity.’”
Elk River Books will celebrate its sixth anniversary on Thursday, May 18th with a reading featuring poetry by Missoula icon David E. Thomas and Iraqi poet Saif Alsaegh at 7pm.
The event caps off Livingston’s year-long participation in Humanities Montana’s Hometown Humanities program, in which the organization sponsored more than 30 humanities-related events throughout the community.
David Thomas grew up on the Hi-Line, graduated from the University of Montana, then found himself on the streets of San Francisco where he began his literary education. Economic realities drove him to work on railroad gangs and on construction projects like the Libby Dam. The author of four books of poems, Thomas has been published in anthologies including The Last Best Place, Poems Across the Big Sky, and New Poets of the American West, and periodicals including Blue Collar Review and the Cedilla literary journal. His essay “Gothic Days” appears in The Complete Montana Gothic, which also features Thomas’ earliest published work. Most recently he has published poems and an interview in Talking River and poems in San Pedro River Review.
Originally from Iraq, Saif Alsaegh currently is a film student in Missoula. His work has appeared in Witness, the Great Falls Tribune, The Legendary and other venues. His first book, Iraqi Headaches, was published in 2013. Alsaegh’s appearance at the event is sponsored by Humanities Montana.
Humanities Montana organizer Sarah Kahn says some of her favorite programs in the last year involved students at the middle and high schools. One class made a film about teen dating, abuse and assault. Another hosted a talk on what it’s like to be a Muslim in America. “Kids went from knowing nothing about Islam and having some negative connotations to becoming engaged and curious about topics like prayer…and the spiritual significance of fasting,” Kahn says.
These free, public events will take place upstairs at Elk River Books, 120 N. Main St., in Livingston. Elk River Arts & Lectures is a nonprofit organization that seeks to bring writers to Livingston for free public readings, and to provide opportunities for those writers to interact with local public school students. For more information, call (406) 333-2330 or visit www.elkriverarts.org. •
