߲ݴý University’s Spring Visiting Writers Series will feature two poets.
Poet Brenda Shaughnessy, associate professor of English and creative writing at Rutgers University-Newark, will give a reading on Thursday, March 30. Poet and essayist Brian Blanchfield, visiting faculty at The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, will give a reading on Thursday, April 13.
Shaughnessy is the author of four poetry collections, most recently So Much Synth (2016, Copper Canyon Press) and Our Andromeda (2012), which was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award, the International Griffin Prize, and the PEN Open Book Award. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Harpers, The New York Times, The New Yorker, O Magazine, and Poetry Magazine. Recent collaborative projects include writing a libretto for a Mass commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street for composer Paola Prestini, and a poem-essay for the exhibition catalog for Toba Khedoori’s solo retrospective show at LACMA. Her reading at ߲ݴý will begin at 6 p.m. in Olin A Lecture Hall, located one block east of 50th Street and St. Paul Ave.
Blanchfield is the author of three books of poetry and prose, most recently Proxies (Nightboat Books, 2016; Picador UK, 2017), which is a collection of essays of cultural close reading and a dicey autobiography, for which he received a 2016 Whiting Award in nonfiction. His second book of poems, A Several World (Nightboat, 2014), was the recipient of The Academy of American Poets’ 2014 James Laughlin Award and a longlist finalist for The National Book Award. His poetry and prose have appeared in Harper’s, The Oxford American, The Nation, and The Paris Review. His reading begins at 6 p.m. in Callen Conference Center, located on the lower level of the Smith-Curtis Administration Building.
The Spring Visiting Writers Series reading are free and open to the public.