Thursday, March 15, 2012

Part III of Spring Lecture Series

The English Club announces its third installment of the Spring Lecture Series. Tomorrow, March 16, from 10 to 10:50 a.m. in Beaman A&B, Dr. Gary McDowell will deliver a talk titled "Exploratory Poetry: The Syntax of Disjunction and Juxtaposition" (Culture & Arts convo credit offered). Dr. McDowell will offer a poetry reading and comment upon and illustrate contemporary exploratory poetry’s leanings toward disjunction, disruption, association, and juxtaposition. Whether it’s through syntax, content, or a combination of the two, exploratory poems, as McDowell puts it, “do not aspire to be comfortable or comforting;” instead they wish to “stretch the boundaries of the sayable.”

Dr. McDowell is an Assistant Professor of English at Belmont who specializes in creative Writing and contemporary American poetics. He is a widely published poet and critic. His first full-length book of poetry, American Amen (Dream Horse Press, 2010), won the 2009 Orphic Prize for poetry, and he's the author of two previous volumes of poetry, Blueprint (Pudding House, 2005) and They Speak of Fruit (Cooper Dillon, 2009). He's also the co-editor of the best-selling anthology, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010).