Poet Kathleen Graber to speak Feb. 21

Great literature speaks to us across the years and miles. In The Eternal City, her National Book Award-nominated collection, poet Kathleen Graber speaks back, offering reflective yet surprisingly conversational responses to writers and artists from Marcus Aurelius and William Blake to Milan Kundera and Johnny Depp. On Thursday, Feb. 21, Graber will read from her work for The Writing Program Reading Series.

Poet Carl Phillips to help relaunch Modern Literature Reading Series

Acclaimed poet Carl Phillips will help relaunch WUSTL’s Modern Literature Reading Series when he does a reading of the late poet Robert Creeley’s work at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12. The event, which is sponsored by University Libraries’ Department of Special Collections, will also feature two master of fine arts students reading the work of two 20th-century poets.

WUSTL English professor Carl Phillips wins LA Times Book Prize

Carl Phillips, professor of English in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry for Double Shadow, his most recent book of poetry. Phillips was one of 12 winners recognized during a ceremony April 20 at the University of Southern California.

Phillips reads at National Book Awards

Carl Phillips, professor of English in Arts & Sciences and a 2011 finalist for the National Book Award in poetry, reads from his 2011 book Double Shadow during the National Book Awards’ Finalist Reading Nov. 15. Double Shadow — published this past March — is Phillips’ 11th collection of poetry and earned Phillips a fourth nomination for the National Book Award in poetry.

Phillips receives American poets fellowship

Poet Carl Phillips, professor of English and of African & African American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, has won the 2006 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, given in memory of James Ingram Merrill. The fellowship is awarded annually to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career and provides a stipend of $25,000. The academy’s board of chancellors, a body of 15 eminent poets, elected Phillips.

‘Easy to remember, hard to forget’

For Fatemeh Keshavarz, Ph.D., associate professor of Persian and of comparative literature, both in Arts & Sciences, poetry is much more than an academic discipline. It is a profoundly personal experience that requires both the poet and the reader to be fully involved in its consummation. “Poetry is the magic we perform with language,” she […]

Summer Writers Institute to be held June 16-27

Workshops will be held weekdays from 9:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. The teachers — John Dalton in fiction, Ruth Ellen Kocher in poetry and Rockwell Gray in creative nonfiction — will provide both instruction in the genre and constructive criticism of participants’ work.

Memoir, anthology focus new light on American poet John Morris

A page from *Selected Poems* by MorrisAmerican poet John N. Morris never achieved widespread public acclaim in his lifetime, but those who knew him well — including some of the nation’s most distinguished poets and critics — expect his star to rise with publication of two books showcasing both his life and his life’s work. “Read him and you cannot live your own life innocently again,” suggests Helen Vendler, one of the nation’s leading literary critics. Morris, who died in 1997, was a professor of English literature in Arts & Sciences for 30 years at Washington University in St. Louis.