Former Poet Laureate to Speak on April 2 at OSU

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Arts and humanities lecture is free and open to the public.
 (March 31, 2009, STILLWATER, Okla.) – A poetry reading by former Poet Laureate Charles Simic will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 2, at the Stillwater Public Library Reception Room.

The reading is hosted by the creative writing program in the Oklahoma State University Department of English with funding from the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU.

Simic published his first full-length collection of poems, What the Grass Says, in 1967.

Since then Simic has published more than 60 books in the United States and abroad, 20 titles of his own poetry among them, including That Little Something. My Noiseless Entourage; Selected Poems: 1963-2003, for which he received the 2005 International Griffin Poetry Prize; The Voice at 3:00 AM: Selected Late and New Poems; Night Picnic; The Book of Gods and Devils; and Jackstraws, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.

Simic also has published numerous translations of French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian poetry, and is the author of several books of essays, including Orphan Factory.

Simic was chosen to receive the Academy of American Poets Fellowship   in 1998, and elected a Chancellor   of The Academy of American Poets in 2000. He has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995.

Most recently, Simic was the recipient of the 2007 Wallace Stevens Award   by the Academy of American Poets. He is emeritus professor of the University of New Hampshire where he has taught since 1973.

The presentation is made possible by the Arts and Humanities Lecture Series in the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU, and the Arrington Creative Writing Fund.  To learn more, phone (405) 744-9474.