Former Poet Laureate will give a reading of her work
Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson will give a reading at Connecticut College on Thursday, Nov. 29, at 4:30 p.m. in the Charles Chu Asian Art Reading Room of Shain Library. Nelson, the Poet Laureate of Connecticut from 2001-2006, is a University of Connecticut emeritus professor of English and the author of 14 books, including poetry, translations and books for children and young adults. She has received some of poetry's most prestigious awards, including the Poets' Prize, given annually by a committee of poets in honor of the best book of verse published by a living American poet, and the Frost Medal, presented by the Poetry Society of America each year for "distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry." Nelson has been a finalist for a National Book Award on several occasions and received the Anisfield-Wolf Award, an American prize focusing on books that address racism and diversity. And she has been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Council of Learned Societies, J.S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Fulbright Program. Her work is included in the recently published "Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poems Since 1776." "Of course Marilyn's in there, along with Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wallace Stevens, James Merrill and Connecticut College's own William Meredith," said Charles Hartman, the Lucy Marsh Haskell '19 Endowed Professor, Department of Literatures in English. (Modesty prevents Hartman from noting his own inclusion in the anthology.) "She is one of my favorite Connecticut Poets Laureate. Her generosity of spirit - in her poems and outside them - made her an ideal representative for the art in this state with such a long poetic history. I look forward to a great reading - she's funny and fierce, and her readings are always genial and bracing." Nelson's poetry reading is sponsored by the Department of Literatures in English and the Connecticut Poetry Circuit. It is free and open to the public.
November 21, 2012