Tag Archives: Poetry

Elliston Poetry Lecture, February 27, 2015, Mary Szybist

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The next reading in the Elliston Reading Series will be by poet Mary Szybist.

February 27, 2015 4:00 PM, Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Mary Szybist is most recently the author of Incarnadine, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Her work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her first book, Granted, won the 2004 GLCA New Writers Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A native of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, she now lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches at Lewis & Clark College.

Look for recordings of this presentation soon in the digital collection, The Elliston Project: Poetry Readings and Lectures at the University of Cincinnati.

Learn more about Events sponsored by the Elliston Poetry Fund.

Poetry Month and ARB-Dublin's Easter Rising

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By: Kevin Grace

A Voice of Insurgency     Ninety-eight years ago in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood staged an uprising during Easter Week, the intent being to reclaim Ireland from the British and establish a republic.  Though the rebellion failed, as so many others had in the previous two centuries, the rising galvanized the Irish people in a way that would ultimately lead to the country’s independence following a bloody civil war.  The Easter Rising and the years following it are complicated ones in sorting out the loyalties and issues, though there has been no shortage of histories and autobiographies and polemics.

In the Rare Books Collection, there is another view of the rising: a poetry chapbook by Maeve Cavanagh.  Entitled A Voice of Insurgency, Cavanugh’s collection of verse documents the six days of the rebellion from Monday, April 24 through Saturday,April 29 and the men and women who were in the forefront of it as gunshots and cannon fire reverberated around Dublin.  Cavanagh was a dedicated supporter of the republican movement, and friends with many of the leaders of the insurgency.  Her poems capture the fear and exhilaration of that Easter week. Continue reading →

A Poem in Your Pocket All Month Long: Emily Dickinson

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pocketpiece-01Hope is the thing with feathers

by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

For more on Emily Dickinson, visit Poets.org.

April is National Poetry Month. In celebration of this, UC Libraries has mounted an exhibit on the fourth floor of Langsam Library celebrating poetry and poets.

For more, visit http://www.libraries.uc.edu/elliston/poetryexhibit.html

Poetry Month and ARB-Phillis Wheatley's Poetry

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By:  Kevin Grace

anthropodermic binding     Last week we had the pleasure of hosting an English Department lecture by visiting University of Texas professor John Rumrich on John Milton’s poetry, who spoke on the sometimes very literal connection between a physical book and an author.  In the case of Milton, Professor Rumrich related the poet’s work to the curious custom that developed in the 18th century of binding books in human skin.  And, in preparation for his remarks, Rumrich examined the Archives & Rare Books Library’s anthropodermic binding.

An odd volume in our holdings for over half a century, this binding encloses the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, an 18th century African American poet.  Though there is no indication at all that the binding has a connection to the poet in any way, and really is an altogether other topic for discussion, it did call our attention to the Wheatley body of work, appropriate enough for a month devoted to poetry. Continue reading →

A Poem in Your Pocket All Month Long: T.S. Elliot

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pocketpiece-01Morning at the Window
by T.S. Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

Continue reading →

National Poetry Month and ARB

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By:  Kevin Grace

Poem Illustration of TrumpeterBecause April is celebrated as National Poetry Month, over the next few weeks the Archives & Rare Books Library will blog about some of its significant holdings in the Rare Books Collection.  Perhaps the best subject with which to begin is ARB’s outstanding collection of 18th century poetical pamphlets.  Eighteenth-century literature is one of the hallmarks of the rare books holdings, encompassing drama, poetry, fiction, philosophy, theology, travel, history, and geography.  And the core of this area is what we have traditionally called the Anonymous Poetical Pamphlet Collection.

Poem Illustration Continue reading →

A Poem in Your Pocket All Month Long

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pocketpiece-01April is National Poetry Month. In celebration of this, UC Libraries has mounted an exhibit on the fourth floor of Langsam Library celebrating poetry and poets.

Included in the exhibit is information about the Elliston Poetry Room, some Ohio poets, poets with a Cincinnati connection, and a sampling of UC poets including Armando Romero, Danielle Deulen, Don Bogen, James Cummins, John Drury and Nicasio Urbina.

Continue reading →

The Elliston Project Digital Archive Technology Workshop, April 5, 2014

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In May of 2013, we received a UC Faculty Development Council Grant to run a series of five workshops in order to help us determine the best ways to use The Elliston Digital Audio Archive for instruction and research. The final of these lectures will take place on April 5, 2014 and will be led by Lori Emerson. This workshop will include training in a variety of digital tools for the productive use of digital audio archives.

Continue reading →

Elliston Poetry Reading, March 14, 2014, Dana Levin

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The next reading in the Elliston Reading Series will be by poet Dana Levin.

March 14, 2014, 4:00 PM, Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Dana Levin’s first book, In the Surgical Theatre, was awarded the 1999 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize and went on to receive nearly every award available to first books and emerging poets. Copper Canyon Press brought out her second book, Wedding Day, in 2005, and in 2011 her most recent, Sky Burial, which The New Yorker called “utterly her own and utterly riveting.” She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including those from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, the Witter Bynner Foundation and the Library of Congress, as well as the Rona Jaffe, Whiting and Guggenheim Foundations. A teacher of creative writing and literature for over twenty years, Levin currently co-chairs the Creative Writing and Literature Department at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Look for recordings of this presentation soon in the digital collection, The Elliston Project: Poetry Readings and Lectures at the University of Cincinnati.

Learn more about Events sponsored by the Elliston Poetry Fund.

Elliston Poetry Reading, March 12, 2014, Sarah Arvio

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The next reading in the Elliston Reading Series will be by poet Sarah Arvio.

March 12, 2014, 4:00 PM, Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library

Sarah Arvio’s latest book is night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis, a hybrid work:  poetry, essay, memoir.  Her earlier books of poems are Visits from the Seventh and Sono: cantos. She has won the Rome Prize and the Bogliasco and Guggenheim fellowships, among other honors.  For many years a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has also taught poetry at Princeton.  She now lives in Maryland, by the Chesapeake Bay.

Look for recordings of this presentation soon in the digital collection, The Elliston Project: Poetry Readings and Lectures at the University of Cincinnati.

Learn more about Events sponsored by the Elliston Poetry Fund.