Ithaca College

The Spring 2017 Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the Department of Writing and the School of Humanities and Sciences, begins this Thursday, February 2nd with a reading by poet Bruce Smith, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, at 7:30 PM in Klingenstein Lounge.

Fiction writer and memoirist Yiyun Li, winner of the MacArthur Prize and named one of the 20 best novelists under 40 by The New Yorker, will give a reading on Tuesday, February 28th at 7:30 PM in Clark Lounge; poet, essayist, critic, and Harvard Professor of English Stephen Burt, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, will read on Tuesday, March 28th at 8 PM in Klingenstein. All events are free and open to the public, and books will be on sale.

Bruce Smith was born and raised in Philadelphia. He is the author of six books of poems: The Common Wages; Silver and Information; Mercy Seat; The Other Lover, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; Songs for Two Voices; and Devotions, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His other awards include a Fine Arts Work Center fellowship, the Discovery/The Nation prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, and an award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches in the MFA program at Syracuse University.

Stephen Burt wrote of Devotions in the New York Times Book Review, "Bruce Smith's new poems move fast and travel far. . . . Most books of new poems are either too long or leave readers wanting more. Devotions does neither; it is ample as well as ambitious, agile and unpredictable as well as viscerally affecting. For all that its born-to-run characters yearn for escape, it's a book to stay inside; it's exhausting to read, and yet it's a book to get lost in, one you won't exhaust any time soon."

Listen to Smith read from his work at the National Book Award Ceremony.

Visit the event page here and learn more about the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series here.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Eleanor Henderson at ehenderson@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-3324. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.