Name: An evening with poet John Gallaher and artist Jerry Thompson
Start: 2025-08-19T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-08-19T21:00:00-05:00
Location: 106 Orr St, 65201

An evening with poet John Gallaher and artist Jerry Thompson

Join us at Orr Street Studios for an evening with poet John Gallaher, author (most recently) of My Life in Brutalist Architecture (Four Way Books, 2024), and lifelong architect and painter, Jerry Thompson.
Light refreshments will be provided. FREE to attend. Doors open at 6:30 pm and readings/presentations begin at 7 pm, lasting about 20-30 minutes each, with an intermission; speakers will have time for questions after their presentations. Books will be available for sale after the reading through Yellow Dog Books.
John Gallaher is the author or co-author of eight poetry collections, most recently My Life in Brutalist Architecture, which was inspired by his adoption story, the death of his adopted mother, and the reunification with his birth mother through DNA testing. His honors include the 2005 Levis Poetry Prize for his second book, The Little Book of Guesses (Four Way Books). His poetry has been published in literary journals and magazines including Boston Review, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Field, The Literati Quarterly, jubilat, The Journal, Ploughshares, and in anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2008.
Jerry Thompson, a 1964 Bachelor/Architecture graduate at Oklahoma State University, practiced architecture for over forty-two years, including eleven years in the Columbia area. He painted watercolors regularly for sixteen of those years. After retirement in 2006, he continued painting watercolors and sketching around Mid-Missouri and while traveling to beautiful places in the U.S. and abroad. He is a member of the Columbia Art League, the Missouri Watercolor Society, and the Columbia Palette plein air painting group. He has shown his work in exhibits with all three of those organizations. Several enlarged prints of his watercolors can be viewed locally in Boone Hospital Center and in the Ellis Fischel cancer treatment center in University Hospital’s new patient tower. Watercolor prints of University of Missouri’s iconic views have been purchased by individuals, businesses, and by the university for faculty and staff retirement gifts over the past several years.
This event is sponsored by the generous support of the Columbia Office of Cultural Affairs and Orr Street Studios.