t h e P o e t r y C e n t e r a t S m i t h

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W E VA L U E YO U R S U P P O R T & R E V E L I N YO U R P R E S E N C E *

Spring 2019* C H E N C H E N ’ S debut collection When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017) was the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Prize, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, selected as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award. Chen’s visionary poems address youth, family and love playfully and tenderly, navigating the intersections of queer, Asian-American and immigrant identities. Poets & Writers named Chen in their Inspiration Issue as one of “Ten Poets Who Will Change the World” and The Atlantic featured him in the article “How Poetry Came to Matter Again.” He studied Pacific/Asian/American Studies at Hampshire College and

earned his MFA from Syracuse University and his PhD from Texas Tech University.

Supported by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures

In her poem “38,” L AY L I L O N G S O L D I E R notes that “‘Real’ poems do not ‘really’ require words,” even as her work shows us the vitality, resonance and adaptability of well-chosen language. Her tremendous first book WHEREAS (Graywolf Press, 2017) interrogates and demands justice for the past, present and future of Native people in America. WHEREAS, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Long Soldier is also a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and a Whiting Award, as well as a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.

Supported by the Smith College Lecture Committee, CEEDS (the Center for the Environment, Ecological Design & Sustainability), the Department of English Language & Literature, the Department of Government, the Program in American Studies

Judge of the 13th Annual Poetry Prize for High School Girls, J E N N Y G E O R G E employs deceptively inviting and delicate language to reveal vivid, multi-layered narrative and descriptive worlds. She crafts elaborate, intimate dreamscapes, writing about touch in “The Miniature Bed” as “opening the dark, / like a match, the sun’s flaring.” She is the author of The Dream of Reason (Copper Canyon, 2018) and has received fellowships from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fund, the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Yaddo. Studying human ecology before earning her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, George’s poetry demonstrates a vivid understanding of human beings and their surrounding worlds. Living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, George helps

run the Hidden Leaf Foundation, a Buddhist-based social justice organization.

Deliberate and masterful in their craft, J A N E H I R S H F I E L D ’ S poems invite readers to contemplate the many facets of being. Of Hirshfield's books, Laura Donnelly writes, “[T]hey waken us through their travels in the elemental; or rather, they waken us to the ways the elemental travels through us.” Hirshfield is the author of ten books of poetry, the most recent of which is 2015’s The Beauty: Poems. She is also the author of two books of essays, and she's served as the editor of four poetry anthologies. She has received countless awards for her poetry, among them fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and from the Academy of American Poets for distinguished poetic achievement.

Presented as part of the 2018-19 Putting Pen to Palm Leaf series, supported by the Buddhist Studies Program, Poetry Center, Ada Howe Kent Fund, Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, Department of English Language & Literature, Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, Department of Religion, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Five Colleges, Inc.

Director’s NoteMy first semester as the Director of the Poetry Center has been a whirlwind thrill. It’s

been a true honor and an utter pleasure to teach poetry to the Smith College students, to meet new colleagues, community members, and Smith College alums, and to oversee this past fall’s poetry readings, which were all exhilarating and robustly attended.

This upcoming season will also afford a wonderful line-up of poets. Hampshire College graduate and acclaimed poet Chen Chen will inaugurate the Spring 2019 reading series, followed by Layli Long Soldier, author of the collection WHEREAS, a book of poetry which strikes me as utterly essential reading. And two superb writers will arrive on campus during National Poetry Month: debut poet and Amherst-native Jenny George, and poetry legend Jane Hirshfield.

Meanwhile, I’m delighted to announce two additional events that will take place this coming spring. On February 28th, the Irish poet Eamon Grennan will participate in an afternoon salon focused on the poetry of place, and on April 2nd, Zeina Hashem Beck, a Lebanese poet based in Dubai, will be reading from work that interweaves lines written in English and Arabic. I hope you can join us for these exciting events!

As always, I want to thank all of our donors for their ongoing support. We’re so grateful for the generous gifts that allow us to bring these stellar poets to the Smith College campus!

Matt Donovan

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 7:30 p.m. Weinstein Auditorium

CHEN CHEN

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 7:30 p.m. Weinstein Auditorium

LAYLI LONG SOLDIER

Tuesday, April 9, 2019 7:30 p.m. Alumnae House Conference Hall

JENNY GEORGE and High School Prize Winners

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 7:30 p.m. Weinstein Auditorium

JANE HIRSHFIELD

"In the sky a cloud goes on naming / and unnaming itself.” —Jenny George

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Ada Limón’s “The Year of the Goldfinches” 26th in our series of fine letterpress broadsides by BARRY MOSER https://www.smith.edu/poetrycenter/wp/gallery/broadsides

Assisted listening devices for Weinstein Auditorium are available by request. To ask, please email Jen Blackburn at jblackbu@smith.edu. For further disability accommodations, please contact the Office of Disability Services at least 10 days prior to an event at ods@smith.edu.