Heather McHugh, acclaimed for her brilliantly witty and highly intellectual
poetry, will read from her work as part of the Plutzik Reading Series at 8 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 28, in the Welles-Brown Room in Rush Rhees Library on the University
of Rochester's River Campus.
McHugh is the author of six volumes of poetry that include her most recent work
The Father of the Predicaments. The Guggenheim Fellowship winner and
the National Book Award finalist is also the author of a collection of literary
essays, Broken English: Poetry and Partiality, and has translated poetry
by Blaga Dimitrova, Paul CĂ©lan, and Jean Follain. McHugh is widely praised
for her attention to and fascination with language. The Washington Post
declared that "her spunky language demonstrates . . . that intelligence
is not necessarily dull."
McHugh teaches as a core faculty member in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren
Wilson College and as Milliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University
of Washington in Seattle. McHugh frequently teaches as a visiting professor
at the Writers' Workshop in Iowa. In 1999, she was elected a Chancellor of the
Academy of American Poets.
The Plutzik Series is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious literary
reading programs. Established to honor the work of Hyam Plutzik, a distinguished
poet and Deane Professor of Poetry and Rhetoric at the University, it has featured
more than 175 noted writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Anthony Hecht,
Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wilbur, and Galway
Kinnell. The Plutzik Series is administered by the Department of English. For
more information, call (585) 275-4092.