SoNA Beyond: Transcending Words

Celebrate the power of poetry! The SoNA Singers and Arkansas Poet Laureate Suzanne Underwood Rhodes showcase the power of the written word to inspire creativity across the arts.

SoNA and the Fayetteville Public Library are proud to present a special concert celebrating literary influences across the arts. The SoNA Singers will perform choral works inspired by great poetry, paired with Arkansas Poet Laureate Suzanne Underwood Rhodes sharing some of those great poems.  Rhodes will also debut newly commissioned works as part of the performance. This event is free and open to the public.

Learn more about SoNA Beyond →

About the artists 

The SoNA Singers, the official symphony chorus, are an auditioned group of choral singers from throughout the region.

Terry Hicks is in his thirty-fourth year as Director of Choirs for Bentonville Public Schools, his seventeenth year directing the choir at First Christian Church, Bentonville, and his fourteenth year as director of the SoNA Singers. He also teaches AP Music Theory and has guided his choirs on numerous award-winning tours throughout the United States and Europe. He currently serves at the President of the Arkansas chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, and has been recognized with the ArkCDA Distinguished Director Award in 2001, 2005, and 2015. As a sought-after clinician, he continues to share his expertise with choirs across the region.

Suzanne Underwood Rhodes is the Arkansas Poet Laureate and was appointed to the position by then-Governor Asa Hutchinson in 2022. Her term will end once a new laureate is named. Suzanne is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent a chapbook, The Perfume of Pain. Her second full collection, Flying Yellow, was named a semi-finalist in the North American Book Award. She also has published two volumes of lyrical prose, Sketches of Home and A Welcome Shore. Her poems appear regularly in literary journals, with recent work in The Bellevue Literary Review, Dappled Things, Spiritus, The Christian Century, Southern Voices: 50 Contemporary Poets, and Slant: A Journal of Poetry. She was awarded the 2025 Governor’s Individual Artist Award and was an Artist 360 grant awardee sponsored by the Mid-America Arts Alliance and the Walton Foundation. She has won numerous prizes for her poetry, including first place in the prestigious Sybil Nash Abrams award, first place in the Dr. Lily Peters Memorial Award, three Pushcart prize nominations, and others. One of the great joys of serving as the state poet laureate was to bring "Poetry on Purpose" to dementia patients in a memory care center in Fayetteville and to teach poetry to formerly incarcerated women at Magdalene Serenity House in Fayetteville. Suzanne teaches virtual poetry workshops at the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia, and is an adjunct instructor of English at John Brown University in Siloam Springs where she makes her home.

For disability accommodations, call 479.856.7250 or email questions@faylib.org 2-3 weekdays before a program. Plan your visit by viewing our building map and details on accessibility services.

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