Colby-Sawyer College Hosts Readings by Distinguished Poets in Celebration of Poetry Month in April
NEW LONDON, N.H. - Colby-Sawyer College will host readings by award-winning poets Cynthia Huntington, Ewa Chrusciel and Maxine Kumin as part of its spring 2010 Books Sandwiched In Series in April in celebration of Poetry Month.
The series will feature poetry readings by Cynthia Huntington on April 7, Ewa Chrusciel on April 14 and Maxine Kumin on April 28. These readings will occur on Wednesdays at noon in the Hicks Alumni Lounge at the Ware Campus Center on campus. The events, sponsored by the Friends of the Library, are free and open to the public.
The Books Sandwiched In series begins on Wednesday, April 7, from noon to 1 p.m. with a reading by Cynthia Huntington, professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. Huntington has published three collections of poetry, The Fish-Wife, We Have Gone to the Beach, and The Radiant, and one book of non-fiction, The Salt House.
A former poet laureate of New Hampshire, Huntington has been recognized for her work with the Levis Prize for Poetry, Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry, Robert Frost Prize and Emily Clark Balch Prize. She also has received fellowships in support of her work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Hampshire Arts Council, the MacDowell Colony and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. Born in Meadville, Pa., Huntington received her M.A. from The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.
Ewa Chrusciel, assistant professor of humanities at Colby-Sawyer, will read from her work on Wednesday, April 14, from noon to 1 p.m. Chrusciel won the 2009 Emergency Press International Book Contest for Strata, a book of letters and poems in English scheduled for release in December 2010. Her second book of poetry in Polish, Sopilki, was published in December 2009. Her poem “hagio graphia” was recently named a finalist in the poetry category of the International Aesthetica Creative Works Competition, which received 18,000 submissions from more than 30 countries.
Chrusciel's work has also been published in journals, magazines, newspapers and anthologies. A native of Poland, she earned a Ph.D. in English at Illinois State University and a M.A. in English Philology from Jagiellonian University.
Poet and writer Maxine Kumin will conclude the series on Wednesday, April 28, from noon to 1 p.m. with a reading from her new collection, Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010. She has also recently published a book for children, What Color is Caesar? and a book of essays, The Roots of Things. Since her first collection of poems was published in 1961, Kumin has published 17 books of poetry, five novels, five books of essays and memoirs, and more than 20 children's books, several in collaboration with Anne Sexton. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection, Up Country, published in 1972.
Kumin has served as the poet laureate of the United States and as New Hampshire's poet laureate. She has been honored with the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Poet's Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award, the Harvard Arts Medal, the Robert Frost Medal and the Paterson Prize for Distinguished Literary Achievement. Born in Germantown, Pa., she attained a B.A. and M.A. from Radcliffe College before it was subsumed by Harvard and was a scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study.
To learn about other upcoming events at Colby-Sawyer College visit www.colby-sawyer.edu/events
Colby-Sawyer, founded in 1837, is a comprehensive liberal arts and sciences college located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Students learn in small classes through a select array of programs that integrate the liberal arts and sciences with professional experience.
Colby-Sawyer College, 541 Main Street, New London, N.H. 03257 (603) 526-3000
