ATHENS, Ohio (March 29, 2000) -- The "people's poet," Library of Congress Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, will read here April 11 at 8 p.m. in Memorial Auditorium.
Mark Halliday, Director of Ohio University's Creative Writing Program, said, "Robert Pinsky has been a crucially valuable contributor to our ongoing national exploration of possibilities for American poetry since the mid-Seventies. His principled and energetic insistence on the simultaneous presence of mystery AND pleasure AND intelligence in poems has given me and many other poets an exciting challenge and an example to match."
Pinsky was named U. S. Poet Laureate in 1997. He is serving an unprecedented third term. His work there has focused on the Favorite Poem Project, which will result in an archive of 1,000 Americans reciting their favorite poems.
The archive, which Pinsky describes as "a gift to the nation's future," will be presented on April 3-4 in Washington, D.C. as part of the Library of Congress' bicentennial celebration. The readings, captured on audio and videotape, feature people from every state and of every age, ethnicity, profession, and level of education reading their favorite poem. Ohio was one of the top ten states to generate volunteers who worked on the Favorite Poems Project, according to the Library of Congress web site. W. W. Norton published an anthology of the poems last fall.
Pinsky teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University. He has written several books of poetry, criticism, and translations, and received many writing honors, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination for "The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1965-1995" and a National Book Critics Circle Award for a collection of essays, "Poetry and the World." A New Jersey native, Pinsky earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University, then did master's and doctoral work at Stanford University.
Pinsky's devotion to making poetry widely accessible has gone beyond his work with the Favorite Poems Project into cyberspace: he is poetry editor of "Slate" magazine and a number of his poems and interviews can be found on-line.
In an interview published on Amazon.com, Pinsky said that during his tenure as Poet Laureate, he has learned "that there is a considerable, vital life of poetry in the United States, outside of the professional microcosms of poetry." To that end, he will talk about "The Sounds of Poetry" during his April 11 presentation, and will also lead an informal class session with Ohio University students earlier in the day.
Pinsky's appearance is part of the Kennedy Lecture series, which was established in the fall of 1962 by a contribution to Ohio University from Edwin L. and Ruth Kennedy, who wanted a premier lecture series which would discuss "major issues of American life." Mr. Kennedy, class of 1926, was one of the university's most distinguished alumni, and one of its chief benefactors. A committee chaired by a faculty member with representatives from the faculty, staff, community and student body chooses Kennedy Lecturers.
