Poet Anthony Hecht to give reading

A nthony Hecht, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former professor at the College, returns to the area for a reading on Tuesday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in Lander Auditorium, Hutchison Hall. His appearance is part of the Hyam Plutzik Memorial Poetry Series and is free and open to the public.

Hecht

Acknowledged as one of the world's greatest living poets, Hecht published his first book, A Summoning of Stones, in 1954. Fourteen years later he won the Pulitzer Prize for his second collection of poems, The Hard Hours. In addition to his six books of poetry--most recently, Flight Among the Tombs--Hecht has written several works of criticism, including On the Laws of the Poetic Art, which is based on his Andrew W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts delivered at the National Gallery of Art in 1992.

Hecht began teaching at the College in 1967. He was the John H. Deane Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry until 1985 when he moved to Washington, D.C., to teach at Georgetown University. During his local tenure Hecht was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, advising the institution on public library programs, acquisitions of library material, and on matters relating to poetry and literature.

Hecht's poems are acclaimed for their technical expertise in dealing with such subjects as war, the Holocaust, and American social life, and have been recognized with numerous honors. One of the judges that awarded him the 1997 Tanning Prize wrote, "The unrelenting power and purity of his high tone carries through a wide range of modes in his poems. An absolutely steadfast ear for the cadences of verse parallels the continuing moral concerns with which he explores matters of love, human aspiration and failure, and self-knowledge."