Poet will be on campus for Workshop/Poetry Reading on Wednesday, April 03, 2013.
One of the most compelling voices in American poetry, Terrance Hayes won the 2010 National Book Award for his most recent collection Lighthead. He has also published three other books of poetry: Wind in a Box (2006), winner of a Pushcart Prize; Hip Logic (2002), winner of the National Poetry Series, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and runner-up for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and Muscular Music(1999), winner of both the Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His other honors include a Whiting Writers Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a National Poetry Series award, a Pushcart Prize, two Best American Poetry selections, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines includingThe New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Fence, and The Kenyon Review. His poetry has been featured on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
Born in South Carolina in 1971, Hayes received an MFA Degree in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife and family. Lighthead, his most innovative collection, investigates how we construct experience, presenting “the light-headedness of a mind trying to pull against gravity and time.” The citation for the National Book Award described it as a "dazzling mixture of wisdom and lyric innovation." Like Billy Collins and Mary Oliver, Hayes is quickly becoming one of the most acclaimed and desired poets of our new century. Critic Cornelius Eady has commented that "First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world."
Join us for one of our country’s most talented poets and one of its most eloquent communicators. Hayes will be on campus to read some of his poems, talk about his writing process, and respond to questions at a 10:00 AM session on Wednesday, April 3, 2013. He will read his poetry at an 8:00 PM session. Both events will be on the campus of ӰAV. Both sessions are also free and open to the public for those who arrive first. Full Circle Bookstore will be at the events selling Hayes’ books, and he will sign books after both sessions. An Open-Mic Poetry Reading will be held from 6:15 PM to 7:30 PM.
Please plan to be at ӰAV for the Fifteenth Annual Thatcher Hoffman Smith Poetry Series on April 3, 2013: Conversations with Terrance Hayes. The Center for Interpersonal Studies will collaborate with the Petree College of Arts and Sciences, the ӰAV English Department, The Oklahoma Humanities Council, the Oklahoma Arts Institute and Full Circle Bookstore, and other groups to make these events possible.