Poetry Center at Smith College to Host Reading

The Poetry Center at Smith College will host a reading and booksigning by acclaimed poet, editor, literary critic, librettist and translator J. D. McClatchy at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 6, in Stoddard Auditorium.

The event is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible.

Of his many literary achievements, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters writes, "McClatchy is formally a master, with enormous technical skills; he writes with an authentic blend of cognitive force and a savage emotional intensity, brilliantly restrained by his care for firm rhetorical control."

McClatchy is the author of four collections of poems: "Scenes From Another Life," "Stars Principal," "The Rest of the Way," and "Ten Commandments." His literary essays are collected in "Twenty Questions" and "White Paper," the latter of which was given the Melville Cane Award by the Poetry Society of America. He has also edited several books, including "The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry"; "Woman in White: Poems by Emily Dickinson"; and "Anne Sexton: The Artist and Her Critics." His translation of Horace's "The Art of Poetry" will be published later this year.

McClatchy is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and, since 1991, has served as editor of The Yale Review.