FOR MORE INFORMATION

CONTACT:  Mary Anthony

mary.anthony@trinity.edu

Jan. 26, 2009

2009 Lennox Seminar to Feature Award-Winning Poets at Trinity University

SAN ANTONIO – Poets from across the United States will be visiting Trinity University as part of the 2009 Lennox Seminar titled “The Poetry Conversation/s: Contemporary Poets Read and Talk About Why Poetry Matters. And How.”  All events are free and open to the public.

·        Poet and Harvard professor Stephen Burt will present “Poetry Reading” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, in the Dicke Art Building Gallery. Dr. Burt's books of poems are Parallel Play, Popular Music, and Shot Clocks: Poems and an Essay for the WNBA. He’s also the author of several works of poetry criticism and scholarship, including the forthcoming Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry. His poems have appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Slate, Agni, the Paris Review, and the Yale Review. Dr. Burt writes about poets and poetry regularly for The New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, and other periodicals.

·        Rigoberto González will be visiting the San Antonio community at 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 6, at the Gemini Ink Independent Literary Center, 523 S. Presa St.  He is the author of seven books, recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and writes a Latino book column twice a month, now entering its eighth year, for the El Paso Times of Texas. Mr. González is contributing editor for Poets and Writers Magazine, on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/ Latino activist writers. He lives in New York City and is associate professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark.

·        National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Hass will present “A Reading with Robert Hass” at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, in the Ruth Taylor Recital Hall.  He has published many books of poetry and was winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his most recent collection, Time and Materials. Mr. Hass has also been awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in 1984 and 1997, and the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1973.  As U.S. Poet Laureate (1995-1997), his deep commitment to environmental issues led him to found River of Words (ROW), an organization that promotes environmental and arts education. Robert Hass is a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

·        Ellen Doré Watson and Barbara Ras will present “A Poetry Conversation with Watson and Ras” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 8, in the Attic Theater on the Trinity campus.  Ms. Doré Watson serves as director of the Poetry Center at Smith College and poetry editor of The Massachusetts Review and is the author of four books of poems, winner of numerous awards, and has translated a dozen books from the Brazilian Portuguese.  Ms. Ras is the author of Bite Every Sorrow, which won the Walt Whitman Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Boulevard, Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, Gulf Coast, American Scholar, and other magazines and anthologies.  She lives in San Antonio where she directs the Trinity University Press.

·        Christopher Merrill will present “7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book, An Expansive Conversation in Poetry” at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 16, in the Holt Center. Mr. Merrill directs the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and is the author of four collections of poetry, including Brilliant Water and Watch Fire; many edited volumes and translations; and four books of nonfiction, most recently Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain.  He devised a virtually unprecedented writing experiment, inviting six other poets to join him for four days of collaborative poem.  The participants include Dean Young, Marvin Bell, Simone Inguanez, Tomaz Salamun, Ksenia Golubovich and István László Geher.  The group created a conversation in poetry that crosses linguistic borders, aesthetic boundaries, and generational divides, and the result is 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book, published by Trinity University Press.

The Lennox Seminar is made possible by the Martha, David, and Bagby Lennox Foundation.  For more information, contact Trinity’s Office of University Communications at 210-999-8406.

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