March 29, 2024

Poet Michael O’Siadhail Gives Poetry Reading, Feb. 26

Micheal O’Siadhail, an Irish poet, will give a poetry reading at UMW on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Hall, Room 411. Among his awards, O’Siadhail is the recipient of The Marten Toonder Prize and The Irish American Culture Institute Prize for Literature.  The reading is free and open to the public.

A Poet’s Perspective

Pulitzer Prize-winning professor is passionate about poetry and mentoring students.

Claudia Emerson Featured in The Paris Review

Claudia Emerson, Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry, is featured in the Tuesday, March 20 edition of The Paris Review. The article, “Two Poets,” retells the author’s encounters with Emerson and includes excerpts from “Secure the Shadow.”

Claudia Emerson Releases New Poetry Collection

Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry Claudia Emerson’s new book “Secure the Shadow” is now available. Her book, published by Louisiana State University Press, is a collection of poetry.

Daringly realistic and artfully mediated by past and present, Claudia Emerson’s Secure the Shadow contains historical pieces as well as poems centering on the deaths of the poet’s brother and father. Emerson covers all aspects of the tragedies that, as Keats believed, contribute to our human collective of Soul-making, in which each death accrues into an immortal web of ongoing love and meaning for the living. Emerson’s unwavering gaze shows that loss cannot be eluded, but can be embraced in elegies as devastating as they are beautiful.

Allison Seay Wins Prize for Poetry Collection

UMW’s Arrington Poet-in-Residence Allison Seay ’02 has received the 2012 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry.

The award is a collaboration between Persea Books and the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project to sponsor the annual publication of a poetry collection by an American woman poet who has yet to publish a full-length book of poems. The winner receives an advance of $1,000 and publication of her collection by Persea Books. Seay won the prize for her collection of poetry, “To See the Queen,” scheduled for publication in April 2013.

As the Arrington Poet-in-Residence, Seay teaches the advanced poetry workshop and the creative writing seminar in poetry at Mary Washington. A Midlothian, Va., native, she is the recipient of the 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, one of the largest awards offered to aspiring poets in the United States, and two fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Poetry, Crazyhorse and The Southern Review.

For more information, read the full news release from January 25.

Michael McCarthy Will Appear in The Southern Review

Michael McCarthy, a senior lecturer in the Department of English, Linguistics and Communication, has had four poems accepted for publication by The Southern Review, the literary journal edited at Louisiana State University. The prestigious journal, founded in 1935, is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. McCarthy’s poems, dealing with trees, alienation and the poet William Blake, are to appear in the Fall issue.

Claudia Emerson Profiled in January Issue of Northern Virginia Magazine

Claudia Emerson, Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry, is featured in the January issue of Northern Virginia Magazine.

The issue is available on newsstands now; the article will be available online at the end of January.

Claudia Emerson to Release New Collection

Claudia Emerson’s latest collection of poetry Secure the Shadow will be released in February 2012 by Louisiana State University Press. The collection contains historical pieces as well as poems centering on the deaths of the poet’s brother and father.

Emerson’s five books include “Late Wife,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, “Figure Studies.” Emerson has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Library of Congress and the Guggenheim Foundation. Former poet laureate of Virginia, she holds the Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at UMW.