What is Poetry Good For?

What is Poetry Good For?

Date and Time

Sep 29, 2014 6:30 pm

Location

14th & V

2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009

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Description:

What is Poetry Good For? presented by the University of Chicago Alumni Club of DC

Shelley Puhak, and Wynn Yarbrough, both award winning poets and university professors, will read their poetry and interview each other about their creative process, the meaning of fairy tales, and the role of poetry in both private and public lives.

Cost: $10/includes light refreshments; cash bar

Register here. 

Shelley Puhak teaches creative writing at Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore. Inspired by Arthurian legends, her collection of poetry, Guinevere in Baltimore (Waywiser Press, 2013), was chosen by Chares Simic for the the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Her debut collection, Stalin in Aruba (Black Lawrence Press, 2009), is a hybrid of poetry and historical fiction, combining careful research with vivid imagery. Inspired by Russian poetry, poems bring to life a cast of characters gathered from Stalin's inner circle, American suburbia, Nazi Germany, post-Communist Eastern Europe, and nineteenth-century Baltimore. And her collectionThe Consolation of Fairy Tales (Split Oak Press, 2011) is a consolation for our soul.

Wynn Yarbrough teaches children’s literature and creative writing at the University of the District of Columbia. Inspired by fairy tales, his poems have appeared in Black Zinnias, The Potomac Review, Branches Quarterly, the Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Midwest, and others. He has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the Louisiana College Composition Poetry Prize in 2005. He is the author of a collection of poetry A Boy Dream(Pessoa Press, 2011) and two critical works, Masculinity in Children’s Animal Stories, 1888-1928: A Critical Study of Anthropomorphic Tales by Wilde, Kipling, Potter, Grahame, and Milne (McFraland Press, 2011) andKidding Around: The Child in Film and Media (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).

Our moderator will be Valerie Ritter, former University of Chicago professor, and author of Kama's Flowers: Nature in Hindi Poetry and Criticism, 1885-1925 (SUNY Series in Hindu Studies, 2012), which details the legacy of traditional poetic eroticism in modern, nationalist poetry and contemporary Indian life.

Click here for more information about the event. 

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