Award-winning poets Forrest Gander and C.D. Wright, who share both professional and personal lives, will discuss their creative process and read from their works at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 21, in the Welles-Brown Room in Rush Rhees Library on the University of Rochester's River Campus. The couple, who have a son and live in Rhode Island, are on the faculty at Brown University and co-edit the literary book press Lost Roads Publishers.
Wright was named the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes nicknamed the "genius grant," in 2004. She has published 10 volumes of poetry, including Steal Away: New and Selected Poems, Deepstep Come Shining, Tremble, and String Light, which won the 1992 Poetry Center Book Award. Wright is also the recipient of the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Whiting Writers' Award, and a Lannan Literary Award. In 1994, she was named State Poet of Rhode Island for a five-year term.
Gander is the author of six poetry books, including Eye Against Eye, Torn Away, and Science & Steepleflower. He also writes literary criticism for The Nation, Boston Book Review, and other publications. He has translated selected works by Mexican poet Pura López-Colomé and has been translated into half a dozen languages himself. The recipient of two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Poetry and a Whiting Award for Writers, Gander holds degrees in both English literature and geology.
Wright and Gander's presentation is part of the Works-in-Progress Series sponsored by the Department of English and co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the College. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, contact (585) 275-4092.