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10 YEARS OF MASS POETRY!

Our 2018 headliners: Sonia Sanchez · Kaveh Akbar · Duy Doan · Jeffrey Harrison · Dorianne Laux · Erika Meitner · Carl Phillips · Nicole Sealey · Sean Thomas Dougherty · Rhina P. Espaillat

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Saturday, May 5 • 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Fathers, Present and Absent: Encounters, Enigmas, and Elegies FILLING

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What can poems teach us about what it means to have a father, or to lose a father, or not to ever have one be an important figure in one's life? How might a poem help us understand what our fathers did provide and what they were incapable of? As fathers seem at times enigmatic, how might a poem help identify key moments when we came to understand them better, perhaps pointing toward re-considerations and re-evaluations of the relationship? In sum, how might poems help us take the measure of the long-lasting impact of our fathers on our lives? Five poets, four on the Suffolk University creative writing faculty and one Suffolk student-writer, will read their own poems that address these questions, and discuss briefly how poetic insight and form can yield surprising insights and new ways of knowing and/or not knowing what a father is.

Moderators
avatar for Fred  Marchant

Fred Marchant

Emeritus Professor of English, Suffolk University
Fred Marchant has authored five books of poetry, the most recent of which, Said Not Said, was named an Honored Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards. He has edited Another World Instead: The Early Poetry of William Stafford, and, co-translated (with Nguyen Ba Chung) works by several... Read More →

Speakers
avatar for Jennifer Barber

Jennifer Barber

Scholar in Residence/Editor, Suffolk/Salamander
Jennifer Barber teaches literature and creative writing at Suffolk University in Boston, where she is also founding and current editor of the literary journal Salamander. Her poetry collections are Works on Paper, which received the 2015 Tenth Gate Prize (The Word Works, 2106), and... Read More →


Saturday May 5, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hawthorne Hotel, Sophia Room