Rutgers Celebrates Poetry Month with Mark Doty, 2008 National Book Award Winner, and Other Poets on April 1
Marathon reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost takes place April 3
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Conversations with four contemporary poets and a marathon reading of John Milton’s epic masterpiece, Paradise Lost, will highlight Rutgers’ celebration of National Poetry Month in April.National Book Award Winner Mark Doty will join poets Tina Chang, Brenda Shaughnessy and Tracy K. Smith in a conversation Wednesday, April 1, at 3 p.m. At 8 p.m. the poets will read from their work. Both events, open to the public, will take place in Rutgers Student Center, 126 College Avenue.
Doty, who won the 2008 award for Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, will join the Rutgers English department as a Distinguished Writer next fall. Chang is the author of Half-Lit House; Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar; and Smith, The Body’s Question.
On Friday, April 3, at 9 a.m., faculty, students, administrators, staff and guests will read Paradise Lost beneath a tent outside Murray Hall on the College Avenue Campus. The event, expected to end at 7 p.m., commemorates the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth and the 100th of Murray Hall, home of Rutgers’ English department.
In collaboration with the universitywide Rutgers Against Hunger initiative, marathon readers and attendees are asked to bring nonperishable food items to be donated to food pantries and food banks. For more information on both events, visit english.rutgers.edu/news_events/calendar/0809/miltonreading.html.
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