Patrick Hayes Writers Series announces spring programs
The series continues in Tucker Hall on March 20 at 7 p.m., when alumna Elizabeth Winder ’03, a poet and biographer, joins former writer-in-residence Catherine Bowman in a program focusing on the late poet Sylvia Plath. Finally, Claudia Emerson, who received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her book Late Wife: Poems will read from her work on April 10 at 7 p.m.
All of the programs are free and open to the public. Book signings and receptions will follow each event.
Quincy Troupe
Recently named the English department’s new “Class of 1939 Artist in Residence,” Troupe is the award-winning author of 10 books of poetry, three children’s books and six works of nonfiction.
He won American Book Awards for Snake-Back Solos: Selected Poems, and Miles: The Autobiography of Miles Davis, as well as a 2010 American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. His memoir, Miles and Me, is being made into a feature film, following the same path as The Pursuit of Happyness, a New York Times bestseller that he co-authored with Chris Gardner and was the basis of the 2006 film starring Will Smith.Troupe’s latest books of poems are Transcircularities, The Architecture of Language and Errançities.
He is also the editor of Black Renaissance Noire, a literary, visual arts and academic journal of the Institute of African-American Affairs at New York University.
Here is information on the other programs, all of which will be staged at the Tucker Hall theater.
Elizabeth Winder ’03 and Catherine Bowman
Winder’s Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (Harper, 2013) investigates the pivotal month Plath spent in New York when she stayed at the famed Barbizon Hotel and interned at Mademoiselle as a guest editor on the magazine’s annual college issue, a summer that would later inspire Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Bowman’s collection of poems, The Plath Cabinet, examines the trove of Plath artifacts (lists, diary entries, paper dolls, wedding invitations) housed in the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana.
In addition to Pain, Parties, Work, Winder is the author of a poetry collection and work published in the Chicago Review, the Antioch Review, American Letters, among other publications. While at W&M, she studied with Bowman.
In addition to The Plath Cabinet, Bowman is the author of poetry collections Notarikon, Rock Farm, 1-800-HOT-RIBS, and the soon-to-be-published Can I Finish, Please? She’s also the editor of Word of Mouth: Poems Featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.Claudia Emerson
Emerson’s newest collection, Secure the Shadow, was published in 2012. She is also the author of Figure Studies: Poems, Pinion: An Elegy and Pharaoh, Pharaoh. All volumes are published in Dave Smith's Southern Messenger Poets series. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Southern Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, New England Review and other journals.
Virginia’s Poet Laureate from 2008-10, Emerson is the recipient of a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
For more information on the Patrick Hayes Writers Series, contact Nancy Schoenberger, director of creative writing, at njscho@wm.ed.
