Rafael Campo

Renowned writer and physician to read at Kemper Art Museum April 15

Acclaimed writer and physician Rafael Campo will read from his work at 7 p.m., Friday, April 15, at Washington University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Rafael Campo
Rafael Campo

The talk is free and open to the public and is sponsored by The Center for the Humanities and The Writing Program, both in Arts & Sciences, in conjunction with the Kemper Art Museum’s Inside Out Loud: Women’s Health in Contemporary Art (through April 24). The museum — part of the university’s Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts — is located in Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards. For more information, call (314) 935-5576.

Born in 1964 in Dover, N.J., Campo is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Medical School. He currently teaches and practices general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where his medical practice serves mostly Latinos, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people, and people with HIV infection.

Campo is the author of The Other Man Was Me (1994), which won the 1993 National Poetry Series Award; What the Body Told (1996), which won a Lambda Literary Award for poetry; and The Poetry of Healing: A Doctor’s Education in Empathy, Identity, and Desire (1997), a collection of essays (available in paperback as The Desire to Heal), which also won a Lambda Literary Award for memoir.

CALENDAR SUMMARY

WHO: Poet and physician Rafael Campo

WHAT: Reading from his work

WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, April 15

WHERE: Washington University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards

COST: Free

INFORMATION: (314) 935-5576

Other books include Diva (1999), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize and Lambda Literary Awards for poetry; Landscape with Human Figure (2002), which won the Gold Medal in poetry from ForeWord magazine; and, most recently, The Healing Art: A Doctor’s Black Bag of Poetry (2003).

Campo’s poetry and prose have appeared in many major anthologies, including Best American Poetry 1995, as well as in prominent periodicals, including The Lancet, The Nation, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times Magazine, Out, The Paris Review, The Progressive and The Washington Post Book World. His numerous honors include a Pushcart Prize; a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship; the Annual Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Academy of Arts and Sciences; and an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Amherst College.

Inside Out Loud is the first major survey of contemporary American art to explore critical issues relating to women’s health. The 51 artworks from across the country represent such topics as breast cancer, AIDS, reproductive rights and technology, beauty and aging, paralleling the rise in awareness of Women’s Health as a distinct category in the medical profession and in the community at large.

In conjunction with the exhibition, more than 30 campus and community partners have joined with the Kemper Art Museum to present close to 70 events relating to women’s health. For a complete schedule, contact Stephanie Parrish at (314) 935-7918; email Stephanie_Parrish@wustl.edu; or download Inside Out Loud: Guide to Community Events Exploring Women’s Health.