jean burden reading 2001

April 18, 2001

 

 

04/18/01

 


CONTACT:
Margie Yu
Public Affairs Spec.
(323) 343-3047

 


Calendar
of Events

Award-winning Poet and Author Will Read at Cal State L.A.'s Poetry Series

Los Angeles, CA -- On Tuesday, May 22, California State University, Los Angeles will present a reading by award-winning poet and author David St. John at the University's 16th Annual Jean Burden Poetry Reading. The reading is free to the public and will begin 7 p.m. in the Fine Arts Gallery, Fine Arts Building. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

David St. John is the author of seven collections of poetry, Hush (1976), The Shore (1980), No Heaven (1985), Terraces of Rain: An Italian Sketchbook (1991), Study for the World's Body: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 1994), which was nominated for the National Book Award in Poetry, In the Pines: Lost Poems, 1972-1997 (White Pine Press, 1999) and The Red Leaves of Night (HarperCollins, 1999) which was nominated for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. He has also published two limited edition books of poetry, The Olive Grove (1980), and The Orange Piano (1987), and a collection of prose, Where the Angels Come Toward Us: Selected Essays, Reviews and Interviews (1995).

St. John has received grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The Ingram Merrill Foundation. Hush was awarded the Great Lakes College Association Prize as the best first book of 1976; The Shore was awarded the James D. Phelan Prize from The San Francisco Foundation. In 1984, St. John received the Rome Fellowship in Literature awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and from that same institution he received an Academy Award in Literature in the year 2000. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities.

His work has been published in countless literary magazines, including The New Yorker, Paris Reviews, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Antaeus, Harper's, and The New Republic, and has been widely anthologized. He has taught creative writing at Oberlin College and Johns Hopkins University and currently teaches at the University of Southern California.

The annual poetry readings were established at Cal State L.A. in 1986 to honor Altadenan Jean Burden for her influence as a poet, essayist, anthologist, teacher and editor, and for her long-standing support of poetry on the Cal State L.A. campus. In addition to poetry, Burden has published a book of essays, Journey Toward Poetry, and articles and books on topics ranging from animal welfare to Oriental religion. Burden has also been the poetry editor of Yankee magazine for more than 40 years.

This increasingly popular event features an annual reading by a major or emerging American poet. Noted poets, Pulitzer Prize winners and U.S. Poets Laureate have been guest readers since the inception of this series at Cal State L.A., including Maxine Kumin, Mary Oliver, Tess Gallagher, Lucille Clifton, Galway Kinnell, Carolyn Kizer, Howard Nemerov, Richard Wilbur, Linda Pastan, and Mark Strand.

The University is located at the Eastern Avenue exit, San Bernardino Freeway, at the interchange of the 10 and 710 Freeways. Public (permit dispensers) parking is available on the top level of Parking Structure II, at the north end of campus. Cost is $.50 per hour for parking. For more information on the poetry reading, call (323) 343-4001.

 

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