Writing Is a Celebration
The seventh and last event in our “Poetry and Politics” series features Polish poet Tomasz Różycki and American poet Major Jackson. The reading and conversation took place at Boston University on October 1, 2008. The event was moderated by Irena Grudzinska Gross, former director of the Institute for Human Sciences, who introduces the poets. It aired on WBUR on March 16, 2008; we are grateful to WBUR for making the recording available to EU for You.
Major Jackson is the author of two collections of poetry: Hoops (Norton: 2006) and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia: 2002), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Hoops was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literature – Poetry. His third volume of poetry Holding Company is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. He is a recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He served as a creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and as the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Major Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at University of Vermont and a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars. He serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.
Tomasz Różycki has published six books of poetry, including Colonies, The Forgotten Keys, and the book-length poem Twelve Stations, winner of the Koscielski Prize. He has been nominated twice for the Nike Prize, Poland’s most important literary award. He lives in his hometown, Opole, with his wife and two children.
Links:
Tomasz Różycki poems at AGNI online