2008 Woodie Awards
Reigning Pulitzer Prize-winning poet to read selections from latest works
Clint Reinbolt
Issue date: 4/15/08 Section: Campus
Miami will welcome the reigning winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry Natasha Tretheway to campus.
Tretheway, whose visit is sponsored by the English department, will be reading a selection of her works at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 24 in the Shriver Heritage Room.
Tretheway's most recent publication is titled "Native Guard." It received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The book follows the path of one of the first black regiments who served during the Civil War.
Tretheway has also received awards for her earlier collections "Domestic Work" and "Belloq's Ophella."
Miami University professor of English Eric Goodman helped organize the event. He said he has seen Tretheway perform before and still vividly remembers that experience.
"(Tretheway's poetry is) historically concerned and significant, yet at the same time, feels intimate," Goodman said. "In person, the experience is even more powerful, because she is an especially gifted reader of her own work."
Tretheway first received recognition for her poetry in 1999, when she won the first-ever Cave Canem poetry prize. Since then, she has been published widely in journals and anthologies such as the American Poetry Review and the Kenyon Review. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, she is serving as Emory University's Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair Professor of poetry.
Frank Jordan, an emeritus professor of English who is currently teaching a class in poetry at Miami this semester, says he has recently become a fan of Tretheway's work and is impressed by her unique and powerful set of poetic skills..
"What sets Tretheway apart is the impressive technical skill of her poetry," Jordan said. "She uses traditional forms, but not in a traditional way."
Goodman said that Jordan was so impressed with Tretheway's poetry that he offered to pay for her visit personally.
"However, when the somewhat steep cost became known, I helped organize contributions from around the campus," Goodman said.
Goodman was able to recruit the support of numerous campus organizations and was even able to get the funds guaranteed by the Office of the President. Goodman said that he wrote directly to Miami President David Hodge himself.
"(I explained that a visit by Tretheway) 'would demonstrate how committed Miami is to bringing the worlds finest writers and thinkers to campus,'" Goodman said.
He said Hodge replied almost immediately, guaranteeing the money.
Before her performance, Tretheway will meet with a select group of students for a question and answer session. The discussion is by invitation only and students who wish to be invited should contact Goodman.
Tretheway, whose visit is sponsored by the English department, will be reading a selection of her works at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 24 in the Shriver Heritage Room.
Tretheway's most recent publication is titled "Native Guard." It received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The book follows the path of one of the first black regiments who served during the Civil War.
Tretheway has also received awards for her earlier collections "Domestic Work" and "Belloq's Ophella."
Miami University professor of English Eric Goodman helped organize the event. He said he has seen Tretheway perform before and still vividly remembers that experience.
"(Tretheway's poetry is) historically concerned and significant, yet at the same time, feels intimate," Goodman said. "In person, the experience is even more powerful, because she is an especially gifted reader of her own work."
Tretheway first received recognition for her poetry in 1999, when she won the first-ever Cave Canem poetry prize. Since then, she has been published widely in journals and anthologies such as the American Poetry Review and the Kenyon Review. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, she is serving as Emory University's Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair Professor of poetry.
Frank Jordan, an emeritus professor of English who is currently teaching a class in poetry at Miami this semester, says he has recently become a fan of Tretheway's work and is impressed by her unique and powerful set of poetic skills..
"What sets Tretheway apart is the impressive technical skill of her poetry," Jordan said. "She uses traditional forms, but not in a traditional way."
Goodman said that Jordan was so impressed with Tretheway's poetry that he offered to pay for her visit personally.
"However, when the somewhat steep cost became known, I helped organize contributions from around the campus," Goodman said.
Goodman was able to recruit the support of numerous campus organizations and was even able to get the funds guaranteed by the Office of the President. Goodman said that he wrote directly to Miami President David Hodge himself.
"(I explained that a visit by Tretheway) 'would demonstrate how committed Miami is to bringing the worlds finest writers and thinkers to campus,'" Goodman said.
He said Hodge replied almost immediately, guaranteeing the money.
Before her performance, Tretheway will meet with a select group of students for a question and answer session. The discussion is by invitation only and students who wish to be invited should contact Goodman.
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