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Poet Henri Cole to Read at Smith College
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Smith
College will host a reading by poet Henri Cole at 7:30 p.m.
on Tuesday, Nov. 18, in Stoddard Hall Auditorium. The event
is free and open to the public.
Cole's most recent collection, "Middle
Earth," is both erotic and visionary. Few poets so movingly
evoke the human quest of "a man alone," trying "to
say something true that has body / because it is proof of
his existence." Fewer poets still so thrillingly portray
the physical world, or man's creaturely self, or the cycling
strain of desire and self-reproach. Tina Barr of the Boston
Review described the poems in "Middle Earth" as "marvels
-- unbuttoned, riveting, dramatic -- burned into being." Singularly
concentrated, simultaneously gorgeous and severe, Cole's
work has been widely praised. Critic Phoebe Pettingell writes
of "The Visible Man," "This is no emotional
striptease; it is a brave, even graceful attempt to find
what is most vulnerable underneath all the armor and stage
props we use to buttress our egos ... Cole speaks plainly,
which is refreshing. More important, he strikes us as candid,
trying to come as close to complicated truths as possible." Hailed
by the critic Harold Bloom as "a central poet of his
generation," Cole has received many awards, including
the prestigious Rome Fellowship in Literature from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
Born in Japan to American parents,
Cole received a bachelor of arts degree from the College
of William and Mary, a master of arts degree from the University
of Wisconsin (Milwaukee), and a master of fine arts degree
from Columbia University. From 1982 to 1988, he served as
the executive director of the Academy of American Poets.
Cole has taught at many colleges and universities, including
Columbia, Reed, Yale, Harvard and Brandeis. He is currently
the Grace Hazard Conkling Poet in Residence at Smith College.
Cole's reading will be followed
by a bookselling and signing. For more information, call
Cindy Furtek in the Poetry Center office at (413) 585-4891
or Ellen Doré Watson, director, at (413) 585-3368.
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Office of College
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Smith College
Garrison Hall
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 |
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Marti
Hobbes
News Assistant
T (413) 585-2190
F (413) 585-2174
mhobbes@email.smith.edu
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