Poetry will take center stage in the English Department this week as award-winning poet Allison Joseph visits campus for the Distinguished Visiting Writers series.
Joseph will give a public reading at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Borah Theater in the Bruce Pitman Center. The event is free and open to the public.
Robert Wrigley, a UI poetry professor, said has met Joseph in the past and is excited for her visit.
“We chose her because she is an exceptionally fine poet,” Wrigley said. “She is widely acknowledged as one of the country”s most generous, rigorous and talented teachers of writing.”
The purpose of the Distinguished Visiting Writers series is to expose UI students to established and successful writers. Yet Wrigley said student writers aren”t the only ones who reap the benefits from the series, which also extends to the community.
Bret Shepard, MFA program director, said he believes Joseph will do a great job of helping the program celebrate this week of poetry on campus.
Joseph”s week will include teaching a workshop to UI graduate students, a public reading and a craft workshop with Wrigley.
The craft conversation between Joseph and Wrigley will take place at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Shoup Hall Arena Theatre. The conversation is free and open to the public.
Shepard said the program looks for great writers who can interact and communicate well with graduate students and community members.
He said the English committee looks for someone who can work with different types of writers or poets, and spends a great amount of time considering who would be best to invite to campus for the series.
“Everyone has their own projects they are working on, so we look for someone who can read across the genre, and that”s one of the qualities I believe Allison will bring to the students,” Shepard said.
Canese Jarboe is an MFA graduate student who will introduce Joseph to the audience during her public reading. Jarboe said she is eager to play a larger part in the literary community by helping to facilitate events like these.
Jarboe has met Joseph previously, and said she believes she will be a great teacher and visitor within this series.
“I appreciate how meticulous her poems are, particularly her sonnet work in “My Father”s Kites,”” Jarboe said, “The entire book is a powerful elegy and every poem has a quiet intensity that undoes me.”
Shepard said the department wants to bring writers that they are excited to tell the community about.
“[Joseph] does so many things, and she does them so well,” Shepard said. “I believe that”s one of the things people will see when they look at her work.”
In addition to the students and community, Shepard also said the distinguished writers who come to participate in this series also benefit from the experience.
“The writers bring a certain energy to the students “¦ but in my experience, they”ve also gotten a lot of energy back from us,” Shepard said.
Shepard said one of the many benefits of the series is how motivated writers are to go and write at the end of the week.
“It is an intense week, but at the end, when everyone takes a deep breath, I think they also feel energized to go and write more,” Shepard said. “And that”s really the goal. To read new work, but also to feel like, as a writer, you want to go and write more.”
Diamond Koloski can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @diamond_uidaho