The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series
Since fall 2005, The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library's curator Kevin Young has directed a reading series that has already boasted some of the best poets from America and abroad, from Sonia Sanchez and Simon Armitage to National Book Award-winner Lucille Clifton, Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander, and Pulitzer Prize–winners Galway Kinnell, Rita Dove, and Emory’s own Natasha Trethewey. Most every reading has been accompanied by a limited edition broadside; the collection retains number 1 of the edition in its holdings.
All broadsides are available for purchase while quantities last. The printings range from 100 to 250 copies, and are letterpress-printed by high-quality fine press printers, including Sutton Hoo and Littoral Press. Signed broadsides, including shipping, are $50 and unsigned broadsides are $25, including shipping. Please contact us for information about which broadsides are currently available.
Li-Young Lee -- April 7, 2009
Award-winning poet Li-Young Lee is the author of five critically acclaimed books, most recently Behind My Eyes (2008). His earlier poetry collections are Book of My Nights (2001); Rose (1986), winner of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University; The City in which I Love You (1991), the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and the memoir The Winged Seed (1995) which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Lee's other honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lannan Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, as well as a Whiting Award.
Campbell McGrath -- March 18, 2009
Campbell McGrath is a prize-winning and popular poet whose work explores the cultural and natural landscapes of the United States. McGrath's awards include the Kingsley Tufts Prize, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and a 1999 MacArthur "Genius Grant." McGrath's latest poetry collection is Seven Notebooks (2008); his previous collections include Florida Poems (2002), Spring Comes to Chicago (1996), American Noise (1993) and Capitalism (1990). McGrath currently teaches at Florida International University in Miami where he is Philip and Patricia Frost Professor of Creative Writing. >> View the broadside of McGrath's poem "Books" printed for this reading
Elizabeth Alexander -- February 11, 2009
Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is the author of four books of poems, including The Venus Hottentot, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She is also a scholar of African American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior. She has received many grants and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship and the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets & Writers. She is a professor at Yale University, and was recently named the Inaugural Poet, only the fourth poet asked to read at a presidential inauguration. >> Listen to the reading on Emory's iTunes U site >> View the broadside of Alexanders's poem "The Elders" printed for this reading
Sonia Sanchez -- October 16, 2007
Sanchez has won the American Book Award and the Robert Frost Medal, and held a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Influenced by jazz, the blues and the oral tradition, Sanchez’s poetry readings and performances have inspired generations of poets and audiences alike. A founder of the Black Arts Movement, Sanchez is the author of more than 16 books. Does Your House Have Lions? was nominated for both the NAACP Image and National Book Critics Circle Award.
Galway Kinnell -- April 5, 2007
American poet Galway Kinnell's writing career spans more than five decades. In 1983 he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Selected Poems (1982). His other volumes of poetry include: The New Selected Poems (2000), a finalist for the National Book Award; Imperfect Thirst (1996); When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990); Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980); and Body Rags (1968). In 2002 he was awarded the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America. >> View the broadside of Kinnell's poem "Hide-and-Seek 1933" printed for this reading (Broadside is SOLD OUT.)
Rita Dove -- February 28, 2007
As a college student, Rita Dove held a Fulbright Scholarship in Germany. She has published numerous poetry collections, and her play The Darker Face of the Earth had its world premiere in 1996 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was subsequently produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Royal National Theatre in London. Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She has received many literary honors, among them the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library contains rare and first editions of her published work >> View the broadside of Dove's poem "Prose in a Small Place" printed for this reading
Natasha Trethewey -- April 27, 2006
Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi; her first poetry collection, Domestic Work won the inaugural 1999 Cave Canem poetry prize, selected by Rita Dove, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her most recent collection, Native Guard, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She is currently the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry in Emory’s Department of English. The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library contains first editions of Trethewey’s works. >> View the broadside of Trethewey's poem "After Your Death" printed for this reading
Lucille Clifton -- March 8, 2006
At 16, Lucille Clifton entered college early, matriculating as a drama major at Howard University. In 1969, poet Robert Hayden entered her poems into competition for the YW-YMHA Poetry Center Discovery Award; she won the award and with it the publication of her first volume of poems, Good Times. Clifton served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1982, and in 2000 she won the National Book Award for her selected poems, Blessing the Boats. Her papers were acquired by Emory in 2006. In addition, MARBL obtained Lucille Clifton’s personal library, now part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. >> View the broadside of Clifton's poem "Aunt Jemima" printed for this reading
Simon Armitage -- December 2, 2005
Born in West Yorkshire, England, Simon Armitage has a degree in social work and worked as a probation officer in Manchester, England in the 1980s. Armitage is known for his distinctly northern British vernacular and dry wit; in Contemporary Poets, Brian Macaskill notes that Armitage's poetry brings to mind "Philip Larkin's late-career use of vernacular, slang locutions, and telling obscenities, Armitage often turns the commonplace or, especially, the vulgar phrase to epigrammatic effect." In 1999, the New Millennium Experience Company commissioned Armitage to write Killing Time in celebration of the new millennium.
Kevin Young -- 2005
Kevin Young is the author of six collections of poetry, and the editor of four others. His first book, Most Way Home, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Lucille Clifton and won the Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares. His third book, Jelly Roll, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Paterson Poetry Prize; his most recent book, Dear Darkness, was featured in the New Yorker and National Public Radio as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” He is currently Atticus Haygood Profesor of Creative Writing and English and Curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.