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Language Arts Live

Language Arts Live celebrates the diverse vitalities of today’s poetry and fiction.

Bates has a long tradition of welcoming poets and fiction writers to read from their work. In 1932 William Butler Yeats read from his poetry in the Chapel. From the 50s through the 80s, the inimitable Bates professor-poet John Tagliabue brought many distinguished writers to campus, including Allen Ginsberg and Gwendolyn Brooks. Since 1991, the college has hosted readings, class visits, and residencies by over 75 authors, among them Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott; Pulitzer Prize winners Paul Muldoon, Donald Justice, Elizabeth Strout, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Richard Ford; Carolyn Forché, Grace Paley, Galway Kinnell, Marge Piercy, and Sarah Manguso.  Recent Bates alums have also returned to read from their prize-winning first books: Jessica Anthony, Christian Barter, Gabriel Fried, Christina Chiu, and Craig Teicher.  Language Arts Live events are open to the public free of charge.

2011-2012 Language Arts Live Series

Fall

SYDNEY LEA
730 pm Nov. 17th, 2011 @ Muskie Archives

Sydney Lea‘s most recent collection of poems is Young of the Year (Four Way Books, 2011).  Other recent books include Ghost Pain, poems, and his second nonfiction volume, A Little Wildness: Some Notes On Rambling.   He founded New England Review in 1977 and edited it till 1989. Of his seven previous poetry collections, Pursuit of a Wound (University of Illinois Press, 2000) was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.  Lea has received fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations, and has taught at Dartmouth, Yale, Wesleyan, Vermont and Middlebury Colleges. His stories, poems, essays and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and many other periodicals. He lives in Newbury, Vermont, where he is active in statewide literacy and conservation efforts.

Winter

JAMES RICHARDSON
730 pm Jan. 23rd @ Muskie Archives

Poet James Richardson has won many awards for his distinctive work. He grew up in Garden City, New York and was educated at Princeton and Virginia. In 1980 he returned to Princeton, where he is now Professor of English & Creative Writing. Recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Robert H. Winner, Cecil Hemley and Emily Dickinson Awards of the Poetry Society of America, and fellowships from the NEH and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, James Richardson’s main collections are Reservations (1977), Second Guesses (1984), As If (1992), How Things Are (2000), Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001), and Interglacial: New and Selected Poems and Aphorisms (2004), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

DAWN POTTER and MEG KEARNEY
730 pm  Feb. 9th, 2012 @ Muskie Archives

Dawn Potter is the author of a prize-winning memoir and three collections of poetry, most recently How The Crimes Happened (Cavankerry, 2009). New poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in the Sewanee Review, the Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals. Currently she is associate director of the Frost Place Conference on Poetry & Teaching, held each summer at Robert Frost’s home in Franconia, New Hampshire. She lives in Harmony, Maine, with photographer Thomas Birtwistle and their two sons.

Meg Kearney’s most recent collection of poems, Home By Now (Four Way Books, 2009), was winner of the 2010 PEN New England LL Winship Award. The Secret of Me, her novel in verse for teens, was released by Persea Books in 2005; its sequel, The Girl in the Mirror, will be published by Persea in 2012. Meg is Founding Director of the Solstice Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. For eleven years prior to joining Pine Manor, she was Associate Director of the National Book Foundation (sponsor of the National Book Awards) in New York City. She also taught poetry at the New School University.

JUSTIN TUSSING
730 pm March 8th, 2012 @ Muskie Archives

In 2005, fiction writer Justin Tussing was selected, along with Uwem Akpan and Karen Russell, to appear in the New Yorker’s annual Début Fiction issue. His first novel, The Best People in the World, was published in April 2006 and was awarded the 2006 Ken Kesey Award for the Novel.  His short fiction has appeared in several publications, including The New Yorker, TriQuarterly, and Third Coast. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, directs the Stonecoast Writers Conference, and teaches at the University of Southern Maine.

for more information contact Robert Farnsworth in the Department of English: 784-0416, rfarnswo@bates.edu

BATES COLLEGE Reading Series since ca. 1990

  • GRACE PALEY
  • MICHAEL HARPER
  • DEREK WALCOTT
  • SEAMUS HEANEY
  • YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
  • TONI CADE BAMBARA
  • TONY HOAGLAND
  • MARK DOTY
  • SHARON SHEEHE STARK
  • KATE BARNES
  • ANN LAUTERBACH
  • FRED D’AGUIAR
  • HEATHER McHUGH
  • JOHN ENGELS
  • CAROLYN FORCHE (Woodrow Wilson Residency)
  • CHARLES BAXTER
  • DONALD JUSTICE
  • LUCIE BROCK-BROIDO
  • LEO CONNELLAN
  • GALWAY KINNELL
  • SUSAN RICHARDS SHREVE (W. Wilson Residency)
  • SYDNEY LEA
  • ABIGAIL STONE
  • JOHN HAINES
  • CORNELIUS EADY
  • ROBERT PINSKY
  • JOHN TAGLIABUE
  • BETSY SHOLL
  • SONIA SANCHEZ
  • PAMELA ALEXANDER
  • PAUL MULDOON
  • JANE SHORE
  • ELIZABETH STROUT
  • GERALD STERN
  • HENRY TAYLOR
  • CHARLES SIMIC
  • CHRISTINA CHIU (alum)
  • MARGE PIERCY
  • DAVID WAGONER
  • DEBRA SPARK
  • RICHARD RUSSO
  • CARL DENNIS
  • BARON WORMSER
  • LORNA GOODISON
  • DONALD HALL
  • CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS
  • C.K. WILLIAMS
  • CLEOPATRA MATHIS
  • RICHARD FORD
  • IRA SADOFF
  • LIZ STROUT (alum)
  • JEAN MONAHAN (alum)
  • PETER FALLON
  • CHRISTIAN BARTER (alum)
  • TRACY K. SMITH
  • GABRIEL FRIED (alum)
  • JOANNE KYGER
  • PAT ROSAL
  • ADRIAN BLEVINS
  • CRAIG TEICHER (alum)
  • JEFFREY THOMSON
  • SAMANTHA HUNT
  • RAVI SHANKAR
  • SARA MANGUSO
  • BRIAN KIM STEFANS
  • ELIZABETH BRADFIELD
  • CAROLINE KNOX
  • DARA WEIR
  • DOROTHEA LASKY
  • JAMES HANNAHAM
  • JESSICA ANTHONY (alum)
  • PAUL LAFARGE
  • MARIANNE BORUCH
  • WESLEY McNAIR
  • DEBRA SPARK
  • COURTNEY ELDRIDGE
  • ANDER MONSON
  • EMILY BARTON
  • ARACELIS GIRMAY
  • MAJOR JACKSON
  • DINAW MENGESTU

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