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W.S. Merwin
September 22, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
W. S. Merwin began his writing career by translating from French, Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese. In addition to poetry, he has also written articles and radio scripts. His two latest books of poems, due this year, are The Folding Cliffs, a long narrative poem, and East Window, a collection of translations from Asian literature. His 1970 publication The Carrier of Ladders won a Pulitzer Prize, and his Selected Translations 1948-1968 won the PEN Translation Prize. He has also published four books of prose, the most recent being The Lost Upland.
Jack Prelutsky
October 3, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
Jack Prelutsky has written many prize-winning books for children, including A Pizza the Size of the Sun, The Snopp on the Sidewalk, and Tyrannosaurus was a Beast. He will recite and sing his poems to guitar accompaniment for first through fifth grade children.
W.D. Snodgrass
October 14, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
W.D. Snodgrass is an award-winning translator of poetry from around the world and author of a score of books of poetry including his first book, Heart's Needle, which won the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent books are The Fuehrer Bunker: The Complete Cycle and Selected Translations.
Frieda Hughes
November 2, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
Poet Frieda Hughes, daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, is also an award-winning painter and an author of children's books. She brings her painterly vision to her first collection of poems Wooroloo. This collection has been described as "a poetic landscape that embraces both the tangible and ethereal."
Thomas Lux
November 4, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
Thomas Lux's six collections of poetry include New and Selected Poems, Split Horizon, which won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; The Drowned River, Half-Promised Land, and Sunday.
200th Birthday Celebration of Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz
November 8, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
Adam Mickiewicz' poetry opened the era of Romanticism in Poland. He is as revered by Poles as Goethe is by Germans and Pushkin by Russians. His most famous works are his epic poem Pan Tadeusz and Forefathers' Eve. For this event, Polish actors will present a bilingual reading of his work with a slide lecture in English by Professor Bozena Shallcross of Indiana University.
J. M. Coetzee
December 3, 1998
Ballroom, SAIC
J.M. Coetzee lives in South Africa and is a professor of English and life fellow at the University of Cape Town. In the fall of 1998 he will be a visiting professor at the University of Chicago through the Committee on Social Thought. He is the renowned author of eight novels, among them prize-winning works such as Waiting for the Barbarians, In the Heart of the Country, and Dusklands.
Chicago Performance Poets Reading
Marvin Tate
Nina Corwin
Kent Foreman
Maria McCray
Reggie Gibson
January 27, 1999
Ballroom, SAIC
Marvin Tate will perform his poetry to the musical accompaniment of bassist Leroy Bach. Tate's first volume of poetry, Schoolyard of Broken Dreams, was published in 1994 by Tia Chuca Press. It was followed by a self-produced eight-song cassette entitled Partly Cloudy. Tate teaches creative writing at a charter school in Chicago.
Nina Corwin has produced several ensemble collections, including Conversations with Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints, Silence and Thunder, and Sisters Through a Strange Mirror. Her work has been published in The Spoken Word Anthology, WISdom, and Poetry: An American Heritage. She is a psychotherapist and lecturer in private practice in Chicago.
Kent Foreman is a veteran actor, performance poet, lyricist and occasional screenwriter. His poetry has been featured in two professional stage productions-Summer in the City and It's About Time. He has appeared as a poet with Max Roach, LeRoi Jones and Allen Ginsburg. Foreman was recently recruited by Maya Angelou to read in benefit performances for the Southern Christian Leadership Council. He won the Chicago Historical Society's Carl Sandburg Award in 1994.
Maria McCray is well-known for her participation in various National Poetry Slam competitions. She also has self-published two chapbooks, The Only Thing I Miss About the South and Gaps.
Reggie Gibson is a poet, percussionist, actor, and activist. He had his first book of poetry, Storms Beneath the Skin, published in April 1998. Gibson combines the word-weaving of the African griot tradition with the often hard-edged rhythms of the African American experience. His poetry has been used in the sound tracks of several motion pictures including Love Jones.
Stanley Lombardo
February 17, 1999
Ballroom, SAIC
Stanley Lombardo is the author of many translations of ancient Greek and Latin classics. He will perform his translation of Homer's Iliad, which has been called "the translation for the 21st Century." Historically-suitable music will accompany the reading.
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
Marilyn Chin
Arthur Sze
February 24, 1999
Ballroom, SAIC
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge has authored eight books of poetry, among them Endocrinology, published in 1997 with drawings by Kiki Smith; Sphericity, Mizu, and Empathy.
Marilyn Chin is the author of The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty, and Dwarf Bamboo, and is the editor of Dissident Song and A Contemporary Asian American Anthology.
Arthur Sze is the author of six books of poetry including The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, Archipelago, River River, and Dazzled.
Jim Barnes
A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff
March 10, 1999
Ballroom, SAIC
Jim Barnes is the author of seven books of poetry including Paris and The Sawdust War. Barnes won the American Book Award for his autobiography On Native Ground.
A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff is the editor of American Indian Lives and will be giving a talk on Native American literature.
Paul Muldoon
April 7, 1999
Ballroom, SAIC
Paul Muldoon is the author of ten collections of poetry, including Hay, New Selected Poems, Kerry Slides, and The Annals of Chile. He is currently the director of the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University, and has been represented in all major anthologies of Irish and British poetry of the last twenty years. Muldoon is the president of the Poetry Society of Great Britain, fellow of the Royal Society of London, and a member of Aosdana, an Irish Academy of Artists. In preparation are two operas, a play, a collection of essays, and two children's books.
Martha Friedberg Memorial Reading
Grace Paley
April 21, 1999
Ballroom, SAIC
Grace Paley is the author of two books of poetry, Begin Again and Leaning Forward, and one collection of poems and prose pieces, Long Walks and Intimate Talks. Her highly acclaimed collections of short stories include The Collected Stories, which won the National Book Award. Her new book of essays Just as I Thought was published in April 1998.
Michael Crichton
May 11, 1999
Rubloff Auditorium, AIC
Michael Crichton has written eleven novels to date, including Airframe, The Lost World, Disclosure, Rising Sun, and Jurassic Park. He has directed six movies and is the creator of the hit television series ER, which has garnered thirty-two Emmy nominations.
Maxine Hong Kingston
Larry Heinemann
May 18, 1999
Rubloff Auditorium, AIC
Maxine Hong Kingston, Chinese-American novelist, poet and essayist, is the author of the novel Tripmaster Monkey, which won the PEN/ USA-West Award in Fiction; the biographical work China Men, winner of the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize runner-up, and National Book Critics Circle Award nominee; and the autobiographical work The Woman Warrior, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Larry Heinemann's novels include Cooler by the Lake, Paco's Story, which received the National Book Award and the Carl Sandburg Award, among others, and Close Quarters.
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