Poet Michael Waters To Read From His Works, February 12 At Washington College

Chestertown, MD, January 28, 2004 — Washington College's Sophie Kerr Lecture Series presents poet Michael Waters, professor of English at Salisbury University, reading from his works, Thursday, February 12, at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of the College's Miller Library. The event is free and the public is invited to attend. “I cannot call to mind anyone of Waters' generation who is currently writing better poetry,” said critic Floyd Collins of Waters in The Gettysburg Review. A prolific poet whose works have appeared in such distinguished journals as Poetry, Antioch Review and The Yale Review, Waters is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and has been awarded several fellowships in creative writing. His recent books include Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions, 2001), Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (BOA Editions, 1997) and Bountiful (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1992). He also has edited several volumes, including Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) and Perfect in Their Art (Southern Illinois University Press, 2003). Waters' poetry has been called vivid and sensual, willing to embrace humanity's imperfections and to speak of love, loss and emotional aftermaths.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Waters attended SUNY-Brockport (B.A., M.A.), the University of Nottingham, the University of Iowa (M.F.A.), and Ohio University (Ph.D.). He has taught in the creative writing programs at Ohio University and the University of Maryland, has served as a Visiting Professor of American Literature at the University of Athens, Greece, and was as a Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. He has taught at Salisbury University since 1978.

The reading is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Lecture Series, named in honor of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor” and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

WC English Lecturer Erin Murphy Nominated For Prestigious Pushcart Literary Prize

Chestertown, MD, December 4, 2003 — Erin Murphy, a Lecturer in English at Washington College, has been nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize for her poem “Studies,” published in the August 2003 issue of the poetry journal Red River Review. A 1990 graduate of the College, Murphy recently took Second Place in the 2003 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award competition, received Second Place honors in the 2003 Literal Latte Poetry Awards, and was a finalist for this year's Pablo Neruda Award.

“Studies” is a poem in two voices that deals with the clinical and personal aspects of Alzheimer's disease. The editors of Red River Review gave it the journal's “highest possible ranking” and voted to nominate it for this year's Pushcart Prize.

The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series has been published every year since 1976 and is one of the most honored literary projects in America. Small press journal and book editors can make up to six nominations from their year's publications by the December 1 deadline. Hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of the annual Pushcart collections. Writers who were first noticed in their pages include Raymond Carver, Tim O'Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Susan Minot, John Irving, and Philip Lopate.

Murphy, who served as Creative Writing Editor for the 2003 issue of the Washington College Review, acknowledges her excitement about the nomination.

“I don't write poems for the money or the glory, although it's certainly thrilling when an honor such as the Pushcart nomination comes along,” she said. “I have a thing for language and poetry the way mechanics have a thing for cars. I like to get under the hood of a poem and tinker with words, see what I can make them do. Whatever the outcome, the Pushcart nomination will rev me up to write even more.”

Poet Suzanne Cleary To Read At Washington College, Oct. 30

Chestertown, MD, October 23, 2003 — Washington College's Sophie Kerr and O'Neill Literary House Lecture Series present a reading by poet Suzanne Cleary, Thursday, October 30, at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of the Miller Library. All are invited to this free event.
Suzanne Cleary was born and raised in Binghamton, NY. She earned a M.A. in writing from Washington University and a Ph.D. in literature and criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She currently works as an associate professor of English at SUNY-Rockland in Suffern, NY. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Georgia Review, The Massachusetts Review and other journals, and her book reviews have appeared in Bloomsbury Review and Chelsea Review. Writing about Cleary's recent collection Keeping Time (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002), U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins observed, “I have long been anticipating this first book, and the chance to express how highly I value Suzanne Cleary's poetry. Her poems have a vigorous forward roll to them and are strung together by daring chains of association. It is refreshing to read a poet who wants to hide nothing, to turn over all the cards at once. High time she had a book, a place for her original voice to echo.”
The reading is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, which carries on the legacy of Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor,” and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet W.D. Snodgrass To Read At Washington College, October 16

Chestertown, MD, October 13, 2003 — Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.D. Snodgrass will read at Washington College on Thursday, October 16, at 7 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of the Miller Library. All are invited to this free event.
William DeWitt Snodgrass was born in Wilkinsburg, PA, in 1926. His more than twenty books of poetry include The Fuehrer Bunker: The Complete Cycle (1995); Each in His Season (1993); Selected Poems, 1957-1987; The Führer Bunker: A Cycle of Poems in Progress (1977), which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; After Experience (1968); and Heart's Needle (1959), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1960. He has also produced two books of literary criticism, To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry (2003) and In Radical Pursuit (1975), and six volumes of translation. His honors include an Ingram Merrill Foundation award and a special citation from the Poetry Society of America, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Snodgrass is often credited with being one of the founding members of the “confessional” school of poetry—a classification he vigorously eschews—having had a tremendous impact on that facet of contemporary poetry. “Like other confessional poets, Snodgrass is at pains to reveal the repressed, violent feelings that often lurk beneath the seemingly placid surface of everyday life,” observed critic David McDuff. Snodgrass' later works also show a widening vision, applying the lessons of self-examination to the problems of modern society. In style and technique, Snodgrass' poetry “successfully bridged the directness of contemporary free verse with the demands of the academy,” according to Thomas Lask of The New York Times.
The reading is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, which carries on the legacy of Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor,” and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

French Actor, Director, Poet Pierre Chabert, October 13

French actor, director, poet Pierre Chabert to read at Literary House, October 13 Acclaimed French actor, director and poet Pierre Chabert will give a public reading of French poetry on Monday, October 13, at 4:30 p.m. in Washington College's O'Neill Literary House. All are invited.
Chabert was a friend of Samuel Beckett for more than 20 years and was directed by Beckett in Robert Pinget's “Hypothesis (L'Hypothèse)” and “Krapp's Last Tape (La Dernière bande).” Beckett also advised him when he played the character of Hamm in “End Game” in Paris in 1981. Since 1983, Chabert has directed several shows, including Beckett's last plays and theatrical adaptations of his novels. In addition, Chabert has re-directed most of Beckett's shows in English with the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Lincoln Center in New York, and the Barbican in London. He also has performed “Krapp's Last Tape” at various venues around the world and toured extensively, presenting lectures, readings and workshops.
Before he became a director in the 1980s, Chabert was an actor in the prestigious Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud Company, where he performed plays in classic and modern repertories. Currently, he serves as associate director of the research group on the aesthetic of contemporary arts of the CNRS (National Center on Scientific Research) and has written numerous articles on contemporary theatre as well as on his work as a director.
The event is sponsored by the College's Sophie Kerr Committee and French Club.

Will Japan Go Ballistic? O'Neill Literary House Launches Spring Tea & Talk Series February 25

Chestertown, MD, February 10, 2003 — Washington College's O'Neill Literary House Tea & Talk Series kicks off its spring lecture series on Tuesday, February 25 at 4 p.m. with “Japan Going Nuclear?,” a talk to address the likelihood of Japan developing nuclear weapons in response to current tensions with North Korea and in its region. The talk will be presented by Dr. Andrew Oros, assistant professor of international studies and political science at the College. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Dr. Oros specializes in the international and comparative politics of East Asia, theories of international relations, and foreign intelligence and espionage. He has published articles in Japan Forum, Public and International Affair, Intelligence and National Security, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and numerous other journals. His report “Can Japan Come Back?” was published recently in a Japanese newspaper.

The Tea & Talk Series will continue on March 18 with “Strings Attached,” a poetry reading and Celtic harp performance by Meredith Davies Hadaway, Vice President for College Relations at Washington College. Hadaway has played the harp in local and regional venues, and has traveled to Ireland as a guest artist for the Clifden (Connemara) Community Arts festival. She is currently a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from Vermont College.

On April 22, Polly Kuulei Sommerfeld, a lecturer in drama at Washington College, will present “What's Equity Got to Do With It?”, a Q&A focusing on the challenges faced by professional actors.

The Tea & Talk Series provides opportunities for college faculty and staff to share their areas of expertise with the college and with the surrounding community. All talks are held at theO'Neill Literary House on Washington Avenue in Chestertown. Tea is served at 4 p.m.; talks begin at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Poet And Editor To Discuss Poetry And The Challenges Of Small Press Publishing February 27

Chestertown, MD, January 28, 2003 — The O'Neill Literary House at Washington College presents “Poet and Publisher,” a poetry reading and a discussion of small press publishing featuring poet Melanie Braverman and publisher Susan Kan, Thursday, February 27 at 4 p.m. in the O'Neill Literary House. This free event is open to the public and is a must for aspiring writers and poets and for those interested in the world of small press publishing.

Braverman is the author of the poetry collection Red (Perugia Press 2002) and the novel East Justice (Permanent Press 1996). She is the recipient of grants in poetry and fiction from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and has published in numerous journals, including American Poetry Review, American Voice and Southern Poetry Review. She has taught in the Spoleto Artists Symposia in Italy and the Fine Arts Work Center workshop programs. She lives in Provincetown, MA, and is currently serving as a visiting writer at Dartmouth College.

Kan is the founding editor and director of Perugia Press, a small poetry press based in Florence, MA. Founded in 1997, the press publishes books by women writers who are at the beginnings of their careers. Kan holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers. Braverman will read from Red and will discuss small press publishing from the poet's perspective. Kan will address the challenges faced by small press publishers.

Stirring The Mud And The Mind: Author Explores Landscapes And Human Imagination February 5th And 6th

Chestertown, MD, January 10, 2003 — Washington College's Center for the Environment and Societyannounces the next event in the popular Journeys Home Lecture Series. Author Barbara Hurd, Ph.D., will speak Wednesday, February 5, 2003, starting at 7:30 p.m. in Easton's historic Avalon Theatre on “Praising the Mess: Landscape and Imagination.” She will also read selections of prose and poetry centering on the theme of her latest book, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination, at a lunch, talk and book-signing Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 12:30 p.m. in Washington College's O'Neill Literary House. Tickets are required for the Avalon Theatre lecture.

In addition to Stirring the Mud, Dr. Hurd is the author of a volume of poetry, Objects in this Mirror, and a book on caves, forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin. Stirring the Mud was inspired by Maryland's own swamps and wetlands, and is both a physical and mental journey through these vital environments often pushed to the margin of human attention or inexorably altered for our use.

Dr. Hurd's essays and poems have appeared in numerous journals including Best American Essays, The Yale Review, The Georgia Review, Orion, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Audubon and others. She is the recipient of a 2002 NEA Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction, four Maryland Individual Artist Awards for Poetry, winner of the Sierra Club's National Nature Writing Award, and a finalist for the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction and the PEN/Jerard Award. Dr. Hurd teaches creative writing at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, MD, where she also co-edits the journal Nightsun.

Journeys Home is a collaboration between the Center for the Environment and Society, Adkins Arboretum, Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, and Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology, Inc. Tickets to the Avalon lecture may be purchased at the door or by contacting the Adkins Arboretum at 410-634-2847. The Washington College event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Please call 410-810-7151 by January 27 to reserve a place.

To learn more about educational events and program sponsored by the Washington College Center for the Environment and Society, visit the center online at http://ces.washcoll.edu or call 410-810-7151.

Cajun Poet Beverly Matherne To Read From Her Works Thursday, April 25th

Chestertown, MD, April 19, 2002 — The Sophie Kerr Lecture Series at Washington College is pleased to present a reading by Cajun French poet Beverly Matherne on Thursday, April 25, 2002, at 4 p.m. in the College's Norman James Theatre. She will also present the lecture "The Spirit Behind the Words: Translating the Poetry of Stanley Kunitz," Friday, April 26 at 2:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of the Miller Library. Both events are free and the public is invited to attend.

Born in Cajun Country west of New Orleans, Matherne grew up with the rich oral tradition and music of her region: Cajun, country western, blues and jazz. From writing in Cajun French to performing blues poetry, these influences have shaped her work. Her poetry has received national and international attention. She did an hour-long interview on NPR with Grace Cavalieri on her show "The Poet and the Poem" and has performed three times in French on CBC Radio Canada Internationale. From the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans to the United Nations in New York, she has delivered over 100 readings across the United States, Canada, and France. Since 1993, when she began to focus on poetry, she has won six first-place awards, including the Hackney Literary Award for Poetry at the Writing Today Conference in Birmingham, AL, and three first-place prizes at the Deep South Writers Conference at the University of Louisiana. In addition, she has received three Pushcart Prize nominations.

Matherne's fourth collection of poetry in facing pages of Cajun French and English, "Le blues braillant" (The Blues Cryin'), from Cross-Cultural Communications in New York, was released at World Acadian Congress in 1999. The blues collection, also available in CD format with guitar and fiddle accompaniment, is preceded by three books of free verse: "La Grande Pointe" (Grand Point), also from Cross-Cultural, 1995; "Images cadiennes" (Cajun Images) from Ridgeway Press, Detroit, 1994; and "Je me souviens de la Louisiane" (I Remember Louisiana), from March Street Press, Greensboro, NC, 1994. She recently translated into French a book of poetry by former U.S. Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz, which is scheduled for publication this summer by Cross-Cultural Communications.

The poet received her Ph.D. in Drama from St. Louis University and M.A. and B.A. degrees in English from University of Louisiana, at Lafayette. Matherne is a tenured, full professor on the M.F.A. writing faculty in the English Department at Northern Michigan University.

Poet William Heyen To Read At Washington College April 4th

Chestertown, MD, March 27, 2002 — Award-winning poet William Heyen will read from his works on Thursday, April 4, 2002, at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Heyen is a well-respected American poet whose work has led many reviewers to compare him to one of his spiritual forefathers, Walt Whitman. Heyen professes his indebtedness to Whitman and subscribes to the earlier poet's belief that "the poet's art is not to chart but to voyage." According to Dictionary of Literary Biography essayist William B. Thesing, "Heyen's lyre has basically seven thematic strings—memory, nature, perception, disintegration, death, the past in Long Island and Germany, and the present community in Brockport [where he makes his home]."

Heyen is the editor of the soon-to-be-released anthology September 11, 2002: American Writers Respond, which will include includes responses from some of the finest writers in the country—John Updike, Erica Jong, Robert Pinsky and others—to the events of September 11.

Poet Daniel Mark Epstein To Read From His Works, Lecture On Millay February 19th

Chestertown, MD, February 8, 2002 — Washington College welcomes award-winning poet, biographer, essayist and playwright Daniel Mark Epstein to campus Tuesday, February 19, 2002. He will read from his works at 4 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of the Miller Library, and present the lecture "Poetry and Biography: Writing the Life of Millay" at 7:30 p.m. in the Hynson Lounge. Both events are free and the public is invited to attend.

Born in Washington, DC, Daniel Mark Epstein was raised in Maryland and received his B.A. in English from Kenyon College in 1970. His poetry has earned him numerous awards and fellowships, notably the NEA Poetry Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prix de Rome and the Robert Frost Prize. His work has been anthologized in several collections of essays and poetry, and his books include biographies of Aimee Semple McPherson and Nat King Cole, and seven volumes of poetry. His most recent book, "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves & Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay" (Henry Holt & Co., 2001) has garnered both critical and popular success by giving readers unique insights into Millay's legendary life and "ecstatic" creative process. Mr. Epstein lives in Baltimore.

Mr. Epstein also will be signing books from 11 a.m. to 12 noon on Wednesday, February 20, at the Compleat Bookseller, 301 High Street, Chestertown.

The reading and lecture are sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee and the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

College Hosts Irish Poet Paul Muldoon on April 17

Chestertown, MD, April 4, 2001 — Irish poet Paul Muldoon will read from his works on Tuesday, April 17, 2001, at 7 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library. Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the reading is free and open to the public.

Muldoon was born in 1951 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and educated in Armagh and the Queen's University of Belfast. From 1973 to 1986, he worked in Belfast as a radio and television producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States, and is now the Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University, where he also directs the creative writing program. In 1999 he was named professor of poetry at the University of Oxford.

A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Muldoon was honored with an American Academy of Arts and Sciences award in literature for 1996. His other awards are the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize. He has been described by the The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War." His published collections of poetry are New Weather (1973), Mules (1977), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Quoof (1983), Meeting the British (1987), Madoc: A Mystery (1990), The Annals of Chile (1994), Hay (1998), and Poems: 1968-1998 (2001).

Poet Gerald Barrax to Read from his Works March 28

Chestertown, MD, March 26, 2001 — African American poet, editor and essayist Gerald Barrax will read from his works on Wednesday, March 28, 2001 at 4:30 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Washington College's Miller Library.

Barrax previously served on the English faculty of North Carolina State University at Raleigh, where he was Poet in Residence from 1993-1997. His poetry has appeared in such periodicals as Poetry, Journal of Black Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, Hambone, The Georgia Review, Callaloo, The American Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Barrax has received numerous honors including The Edward Stanley Award for Poetry from Prairie Schooner, the 1993 Raleigh Medal of Arts for Extraordinary Achievement in the Arts, the Sam Regan Award for Contributions to the Fine Arts in North Carolina, the 1983 Callaloo Creative Writing Award for Non-Fiction Prose, and the Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship for Black Americans.

His published books include From a Person Sitting in Darkness: New and Selected Poems (Louisiana State University Press, 1998), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, Leaning Against the Sun (The University of Arkansas Press, 1992), also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, The Deaths of Animals and Lesser Gods (The University Press of Virginia, 1984), An Audience of One (University of Georgia Press, 1980), and Another Kind of Rain (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970).

Sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, the reading is free and open to the public.