GVSU Poetry Night to feature Gary Snyder and Stanley Plumly

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- At a time when the health of the planet is increasingly demanding attention, two poets who celebrate nature with their words and spirit will be featured during the 2007 Poetry Night at Grand Valley State University, a Fall Arts Celebration event, sponsored by a gift from Liesel and Hank Meijer.

Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Snyder and the accomplished Stanley Plumly will give a reading on Friday, October 19, at 7 p.m., on the 2nd floor of Eberhard Center, 301 W. Fulton, on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus. Admission is free and open to the public. An onstage Q&A will follow the reading. The authors will also be available for a book signing afterward, and a reception in their honor.

“Both poets do celebrate nature – but also life, mortality, old friendships, and the inner landscapes of memory and knowledge,” said event organizer Patricia Clark, professor of writing. “Like fine wine, the writings of these two major American poets have matured in complexity, tone, range and flavor.”

Synder was honored in 1975 with the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for “Turtle Island.” The author, who hails from northern California, has written 19 books of poetry and prose, including “Mountains and Rivers Without End,” an epic of geology, prehistory, and mythology. Born in San Francisco in 1930, Synder associated during the 1950s with remarkable Bay area poets including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. In 1956 he moved to Kyoto, Japan, for 10 years, to study Zen Buddhism and East Asian culture and spent six months traveling through India and Nepal, visiting ashrams, shrines and temples. The professor emeritus of the University of California at Davis has lived in northern Sierra Nevada for the past 35 years, where he has divided his time between environmental and cultural issues of the region.

Plumly’s work has been honored with the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, and nominations for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Awards, and Pushcart Prizes. Born in Barnesville, Ohio, he grew up in the lumber and farming regions of Ohio and Virginia. Plumly has taught in many regions of the country, including positions at the Universities of Iowa, Michigan, and Washington, Princeton and Columbia. He is currently a distinguished university professor and professor of English at the University of Maryland. His new book of poems, “Old Heart,” was just published in September. He also writes prose, most notably his book of essays, “Argument and Song: Sources and Silences in Poetry.”

For more information on Poetry Night contact Patricia Clark in the Department of Writing at (616) 331-3199. For additional Fall Arts Celebration events, visit http://www.gvsu.edu/fallarts.

Media note: The following poem and excerpt may be reprinted.

[Complete poem by Gary Snyder]

Jackrabbit


Jackrabbit,
black-tailed Hare
by the side of the road,
hop, stop.

Great ears shining,
you know me
a little. A lot more than I
know you.



[From Stanley Plumly’s poem “Wight”]

Being alone is no way to be: thus
loneliness is a test of pure being.

Nights in love I fell too far or not quite
far enough—one pure, one impure being.

Clouds, snow, mist, the dragon’s breath on water,
smoke from fire—a metaphor’s pure being.