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2009 - 2010 Eagle Pond Author's Series

The Eagle Pond Authors' Series began in the fall of 1998 as a loving tribute to one of the nation's most beloved poets and authors, Donald Hall.  He remains the heart and soul of this series and is instrumental in bringing nationally and internationally revered authors to the PSU campus.  All readings are free but advance reservations are recommended since readings often fill to capacity.
All readings are followed by an author's reception and book signing.

The Eagle Pond Authors' Series is presented by the Silver Center and is supported by a generous grant from the Plymouth State University Bookstore and Follett Higher Education Group.

Franz Wright

Thursday, 10/22/09 at 7pm, FREE!
Smith Recital Hall

Franz Wright is the author of fourteen collections of poetry of which Walking to Martha's Vineyard (Knopf 2003) won the Pulitzer Prize. His collections, God's Silence and Earlier Poems were published by Knopf in 2006 & 2007, with his newest book, Wheeling Motel, due out fall 2009, also from Knopf. Wright's other books include The Beforelife (2001), Ill Lit: New and Selected Poems (1998), Rorschach Test (1995), The Night World and the Word Night (1993), and Midnight Postscript (1993). He received the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, as well as grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Wright has taught in many colleges and universities, including Emerson College and the University of Arkansas. He is currently the writer-in-residence at Brandeis. He has also worked in a mental health clinic in Lexington, Massachusetts, and as a volunteer at the Center for Grieving Children.

Kevin Young

Wednesday, 11/4/09 at 7pm, FREE!
Smith Recital Hall

Born in 1970, Kevin Young is widely regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation, one who finds meaning and inspiration in African American music, particularly the blues, and in the bittersweet history of Black America. His newest book is Dear Darkness (Knopf, 2008). For the Confederate Dead, was published in January 2007. His earlier collection, Black Maria: Poems Produced and Directed by Kevin Young is a "film noir in verse," a playful homage to the language and imagery of Hollywood detective films.   Young was a 1993 National Poetry Series winner for Most Way Home. Other collections include To Repel Ghosts: Five Sides in B Minor (2001), a poetic tribute to painter and graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a finalist for the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; and Jelly Roll: A Blues (2003), a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award.  He currently is a professor of poetry at Emory University.

Galway Kinnell

Wednesday, 3/31/10 at 7pm, FREE!
Smith Recital Hall

During his career in poetry that spans five decades and twelve collections, Kinnell has received the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, the Frost Medal, and a MacArthur Fellowship. In the nomination for the 2003 National Book Award, the judges called Kinnell "America's preeminent visionary" whose work "greets each new age with rapture and abundance [and] sets him at the table with his mentors: Rilke, Whitman, Frost."  Kinnell's volumes of poetry include Strong Is Your Hold, A New Selected Poems; Imperfect Thirst; When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone; The Past; Mortal Acts, Mortal Words; The Book of Nightmares. He is renowned as an especially sensuous poet and moving reader and has been influential in making the poetry reading a part of our cultural life.  Kinnell has served as the State Poet of Vermont and Professor of Creative Writing at New York University for 25 years. He is currently a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and lives in Vermont.

Oni Buchanan

Tuesday, 4/20/10 at 7pm, FREE!
Smith Recital Hall

As both an accomplished poet and pianist, Oni Buchanan is the author of Spring, selected by Mark Doty for the 2007 National Poetry Series.  The book includes a Flash-animation CD of her large-scale kinetic poem, The Mandrake Vehicles. Her first poetry book, What Animal, was selected by Fanny Howe as a winner of the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series competition and published in 2003.   Oni received the Stanley P. Young Fellowship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and was one of the Poetry Society of America's New American Poets of 2005. She holds a B.A. in English and music from the University of Virginia, an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and a Master's degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music.