Major American “poet of the working class” Philip Levine will be featured in the Good Thunder Reading Series Nadine B. Andreas Visiting Writer Residency Thursday, March 25, at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
The residency also will include discussions with award-winning graduate student writer Jorge Evans and emerging poet Major Jackson.
Levine and Jackson will meet with community writers Thursday morning. At 3 p.m. they will discuss the craft of writing in Ostrander Auditorium of the Centennial Student Union. At 7:30 p.m. Evans will join them in a reading of their published work in Centennial Student Union Room 253.
All of the events are free and open to students, faculty, staff and the public. In addition, an interview with writers, part of the “Authors in Transit” series on public radio station KMSU 89.7 FM, will air Thursday at 1 p.m., and on Friday, March 26, at 11 a.m.
Levine “is a large, ironic Whitman of the industrial heartland,” says Edward Hirsch in the New York Times Book Review, and should be considered “one of [America’s] . . . quintessentially urban poets.” He is author of 20 collections of poetry, and his most recent, News of the World. The Simple Truth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. What Work Is won the National Book Award in 1991. He also has received the Ruth Lily prize.
Jackson, associate professor of English at the University of Vermont and a faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars, is the author of two poetry collections, Hoops and Leaving, winner of the 2000 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. His third book, Holding Company, is forthcoming this year. He won a Whiting Writers’ Award and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation.
Jorge Evans, 2009-2010 Nadine B. Andreas Graduate Assistant at Minnesota State Mankato, has written poems for The Allegheny Review and Blue Earth Review. His RockSaw Press focuses on printing chapbooks that highlight the Midwest and its writers.
The March 25 residency was to feature eminent American poet Lucille Clifton, but she died last month after a long illness.
“Since Clifton is irreplaceable, we didn’t try to replace her,” said series director Richard Robbins. “We tried instead to get someone who, like her, is without question considered a major American poet. We also decided to feature a younger poet associated with an organization near and dear to Clifton, Cave Canem, whose mission is to cultivate the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.”
This year’s Good Thunder Reading Series is funded by the Department of English, the College of Arts & Humanities, the Office of Institutional Diversity, the Nadine B. Andreas Endowment, the Eddice B. Barber Visiting Writer Endowment, the Robert C. Wright Endowment and individual donors. It is made possible by a Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council grant, from funds appropriated by the Legislature, and by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through a legislative appropriation and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Library Services and the Barnes & Noble Bookstore offer additional assistance.
Those who want more information about the series may call Richard Robbins at (507) 389-1354, or click on www.english2.mnsu.edu/gt/.
Minnesota State Mankato, a comprehensive, doctoral university with 14,950 students, is part of the Minnesota State Colleges & Universities system, which comprises 32 institutions across the state.
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