New Writing Series Announces Fall Poetry Readings at UMaine
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571, Steve Evans at 581-3809
Please note: an
incomplete version of this news release was inadvertently sent
yesterday. Please use this copy. Thank you.
ORONO — Nine poets from around the country
and abroad will highlight the New Writing Series at the University of
Maine this fall. Sponsored, in part, by the English department at
UMaine, the New Writing Series has taken pride in bringing poets to
campus who favor an “adventurous and innovative ” take on poetry,
according to Steve Evans, assistant professor of English and coordinator
of the series. This year promises to be no exception, he says.
“We’re trying to foster a diverse culture on
the campus and in the community,” Evans says. “We do that, first, by
insisting that poetry become part of the dialogue. And then we make sure
to invite poets who provide unique and sometimes oppositional visions of
their art and of the world. Poets who shake things up and whose
activities aren’t restricted to ‘poetry as usual.'”
This fall’s poets have earned reputations in
other fields as well: among them there are playwrights, novelists,
small-press publishers, and translators. “We talk often of the ‘creative
economy’ in Maine nowadays,” says Evans. “Well, poets have lived in that
economy for generations now and are our foremost experts on it. We
should listen to their experiences and learn from their examples.
“Usually we work hard to emphasize younger
writers, people who are maybe one book into their careers, and this
semester we do have Devin Johnston and Andrew Joron. But the real center
of this series happens to be four women writers–Marjorie Welish, Fanny
Howe, Cole Swensen, and Alice Notley– who are farther along in their
careers and writing at the absolute top of their game,” Evans says.
The schedule of readings and locations on the
UMaine campus follows:
Sept. 21
Marjorie Welish will read at 4:30 p.m. in
Soderberg Auditorium, Jenness Hall. Most recently, Welish published The
Annotated ‘Here’: New and Selected Poems