Literary Events at Washington and Lee Spring 2011

Hints:  Pick and Choose early.  Don’t wait until the only thing left is something you aren’t interested in.  Take advantage of the fact that W&L brings in more literary visitors than any other college our size: you are soooooo lucky to have this many choices!

March 4:  VMI Undergraduate Poetry Symposium

Friday, March 4

7:45 p.m. – Reading by Brian Turner

Gillis Theater, Center for Leadership & Ethics

Special guest speaker/poet Brian Turner, author of Here, Bullet.

Brian Turner is a soldier-poet whose debut book of poems, Here, Bullet, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times “Editor's Choice” selection, the 2006 Pen Center USA "Best in the West" award, and the 2007 Poets Prize, among others. Turner served seven years in the US Army, to include one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain Division. 

Turner's poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, and other journals, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name. Turner was also featured in Operation Homecoming, a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American servicemen and women through their own words. He earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and has lived abroad in South Korea.

The conference focuses on student literary papers/analysis and student readings of poetry.

Saturday, March 5: Part II of the VMI Poetry Symposium

1 p.m. – Keynote by James A. Winn

Gillis Theater, Center for Leadership & Ethics

All-day presentations of original student papers on poetry, original student poems

and a panel on the Poetry of War.

March 10:  “Steven Ealy, speaking about Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. 

Hillel House, 7 p.m.

A senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., Steven Ealy will speak about “Robert Penn Warren’s ‘All the Kings Men’ and the Political Leadership of Willie Stark.” Corruption, rhetoric and the limitations of political leadership are among the themes of Ealy’s talk. He will compare and contrast the three intertwining stories discussed in “All the King’s Men.”

Ealy, who received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Georgia, is the author of “Communications, Speech, and Politics: Habermas and Political Analysis” and a number of articles dealing with Robert Penn Warren. A senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., Steven Ealy will speak about “Robert Penn Warren’s ‘All the Kings Men’ and the Political Leadership of Willie Stark.” Corruption, rhetoric and the limitations of political leadership are among the themes of Ealy’s talk. He will compare and contrast the three intertwining stories discussed in “All the King’s Men.”

March 11:  “BREATH OF FIRE” Latina Theater Company. 

Stackhouse Theater on Friday, 7pm-9:30pm. “Slip of the Tongue”
Contact:  Dominica Radulescu
From the BOFLTE writers’ collective who brought you The “Mexican” OC, comes a incredible collection of under told stories from hilarity to calamity of identity, sexuality, and culture all from 3 Latina/Chicana/Pocha/Chigonas/Mujeres, y mas?!   Pieces include: When Song Leaders Go Bad!* written and performed by Elizabeth Isela Szekeresh, Calzones Cagados* written and performed by Sara Guerrero, and  Rocks in My Salsa*, written and performed by Cristina Nava.  Their website is http://www.breathoffire.org/.

March 16:  Poet Jeanne Larsen, author of Why We Make Gardens.

Reading: 4:30, Northen Auditorium

Funded by The Glasgow Endowment

Contact:  Deborah Miranda

(Required for English 204 unless other arrangements have been made with Professor Miranda)

March 17:  "Desperate Times and Desperate Measures: Poetry Out of the Ivory Tower?"

Award Winning Poets Rod Smith and Sarah Kennedy Lead a Seminar Discussion & Reading Along with Commentary

Johnson Lecture Series #4

7:00 PM Hillel House

Contact: Prof. Eduardo Velasquez Poets Rod Smith of W&L and Sarah Kennedy of Mary Baldwin College lead a seminar discussion and reading along with a commentary that explore how literary genres that are generally meant to take readers to a private experience, yet during times of crisis -- especially wars and uprisings -- serve as a crucible meant to produce real heat and action.  The title is "Desperate Times and Desperate Measures: Poetry Out of the Ivory Tower?" It is open to the public.  Smith is also editor of Shenandoah.

March 21:  “What We Talk about When We Talk about Revision”

2nd Annual Writer-in-Residence Program

4:40 PM Hillel House Multipurpose Room

Contact: R.T. Smith

W&L Writer-in-Residence R.T. Smith will host Professors Jasmine Darznik and Deborah Miranda in a brief reading of poetry, non-fiction and poetry. It will be followed by an interactive discussion concerning specific tactics and practices writers employ to raise their writing from the level of raw rough draft to polished story, poem or essay.

The program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.

Darznik is assistant professor of English at W&L, a Steinbeck Fellow and author of The Good Daughter, to be released Jan. 27. Miranda is associate professor of English at W&L and author of The Zen of La Llarona, Indian Cartography: Poems. Her book Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, is forthcoming from HeyDay Press.  Smith edits Shenandoah and is the author of the short story collections The Calaboose Epistles and the forthcoming Sherburne.

The authors' books will be on sale. The program is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the College.

March 23: Poet Kevin Hart

5 p.m., Hillel House

Kevin Hart is a poet, professor and chair of Christian studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.  Hart is the author of several collections of poetry, including “Free Tree: Selected Poems” and “Wicked Heat.” He has recently completed a new collection of poetry titled “Morning Knowledge.” Hart’s poetry has won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for poetry, Grace Leven Prize for Poetry, the John Shaw Neilson Award for Poetry and the Christopher Brennan Award by the Fellowship of Australian Writers. In addition to his poetry, Hart has taught philosophy, English and literature at the University of Melbourne, Deakin University and Monash University in Australia. In 2001, he accepted a position at the University of Notre Dame. He graduated from the Australian National University with an honors degree in philosophy. He also attended Stanford University on a writing scholarship and received a doctorate from the University of Melbourne.

March 31:  "At the Sign of the Whited Sepulcher: Notes Towards A History of Hypocrisy."

Shannon-Clark Lecture

March 31, 2011

8:00 PM

Northen Auditorium, Leyburn Library

Sponsored by the English Department and the Shannon-Clarke Lecture Series.

Lecturer will be Dr. Nicholas Watson, professor of English, Harvard University.  Free and open to the public.  Nicholas Watson is a Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University, and the department’s director of graduate studies and the chair of the Medieval Studies Committee. He is an internationally known medievalist whose principal interest lies in Christian religious texts written in Middle English and Anglo-Norman French—the vernacular of the day. For Mr. Watson, these texts provide windows through which readers can catch a broader, if still fragmented, view of the culture of the time.

April 4: 

Alex Espinoza, Chicano novelist, author of Still Water Saints. 

6:30 p.m. Northen Auditorium

Contact: Deborah Miranda

Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico, the youngest of eleven children. At the age of two, he migrated to Southern California with his family and grew up in the city of La Puente, a suburb of Los Angeles. Earning a B.A. from the University of California at Riverside with high honors, Alex went on to receive his MFA from UC Irvine, where he was the editor of the university's literary magazine. Still Water Saints is his first novel.  When the people of Agua Mansa are hopeless, they turn to the healing power of Perla Portillo and the herbal remedies and religious items she carries in her shop, the Botánica Oshún. Weaving together the dramas of her customers -- from a young woman determined to lose weight, to a drag queen turned parent and an immigrant boy fearful for his life -- Still Water Saints chronicles an eventful year in Perla's life and how she not only changes her customers but how they change her.

Alex Espinoza reads the first chapter of his novel, Still Water Saints, describing a day in the life of the Botánica Oshún. (Running Time: 20:35)  http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/writersblock/episode.jsp?essid=14552

An interview with Alex is located at: http://www.riversideca.gov/library/interview_aespinoza.asp   This program is sponsored by The Glasgow Literary Endowment Fund.