events.sjc.edu
Poets in the Conversation Room: Robert Pinsky
Join Us for Poets in the Conversation Room Featuring Robert Pinsky! St. John's College is pleased to welcome former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky for an afternoon of poetry and conversation as part of the Poets in the Conversation Room series. This event is presented in partnership with Grace Cavalieri, Maryland's Tenth Poet Laureate; Kymberly Taylor, Editor-in-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine; and St. John's College. The program will take place in Francis Scott Key Auditorium. Copies of Robert Pinsky's books will be available for purchase in the lobby before and after the event. Admission is free, but advance registration is requested (link above). Complimentary parking is available in the Calvert Street Garage. "If your goal is to explore Robert Pinsky’s place among 20th‑century poets, Grace Cavalieri’s YouTube commentary is the most direct and curated entry point. She contextualizes his work historically and aesthetically, and her long-running interview series provides deeper conversations with him and other major poets." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vAKsLWRm-E&utm_source=copilot.com ________________________________________ About the Poet Robert Pinsky’s most recent books of poetry are Proverbs of Limbo and At the Foundling Hospital. On his spoken word PoemJazz album, also entitled Proverbs of Limbo, he performs with musicians including Laurence Hobgood, Stan Strickland, and Mino Cinélu, is available on Spotify and Apple Music. His Selected Poems (2011) includes poems from his books Gulf Music (2007), Jersey Rain (2000), The Figured Wheel (1906), The Want Bone (1990), and History of My Heart (1984). This year, Princeton University Press published two matching volumes, reissuing early work by Robert Pinsky: The First Two Books of Poems, with the full, re-designed texts of Sadness and Happiness and An Explanation of America; and in the second volume, in matching design, two prose books under the title On Poetry, Culture, and Democracy. Pinsky grew up in Long Branch, N.J., an historic seashore resort described in his recent autobiography Jersey Breaks. Other works include the best-selling translation The Inferno of Dante and The Life of David, a prose book about the Biblical figure. His honors include the Korean Manhae Award, the Italian Premio Capri and the Harold Washington Award from the City of Chicago. He has honorary degrees from institutions including Stanford University, The New School, and the University of Michigan. As Poet Laureate of the United States in the year 2000, Robert Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, in which thousands of American readers, of varying backgrounds, ages, and regions, read poems they admire by writers including Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop and Siegfried Sassoon The videos at favoritepoem.org show the enduring cultural presence of poetry. Robert Pinsky is the only member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters to have appeared on The Colbert Report and The Simpsons. ________________________________________ About Poets in the Conversation Room Now in its third season, Poets in the Conversation Room is presented by Annapolis Home Magazine in partnership with St. John's College. The series is hosted by renowned poet, author, playwright, and Maryland's Tenth Poet Laureate, Grace Cavalieri, and features conversations with some of today's most distinguished poets. "Annapolis needs poetry," says Kymberly Taylor, poet and Editor-in-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine. "It needs this incredible art form that helps us feel things beyond what we hear and read online, on television, and in the news." "I think it's going to create a tremendous audience because it's also entertaining," says Grace Cavalieri. "Poetry speaks to how we feel and what it means to be alive in this world. Who does not want to hear that?"
