Poet Galway Kinnell to Read at Smith College

Smith College will present a reading by poet Galway Kinnell at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 8, in Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his “Selected Poems” and recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant,” Kinnell has been a major figure in American poetry for more than four decades. His iconic poems have won him a large and passionate following. He is the author of ten books, including “The Book of Nightmares,” “When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone,” “A New Selected Poems” and, most recently, “Strong Is Your Hold.”

Calling him “our premiere pantheist,” poet Tony Hoagland writes that Kinnell’s chief subjects are “mortality, erotic love and creatureness.” Critics often compare his work to that of Walt Whitman because of its transcendental philosophy and personal intensity.

In addition to his many books of poetry, Kinnell has enriched the literary landscape with a novel, a collection of interviews and a children’s book. He edited “The Essential Whitman” and has published translations of works by poets Yves Bonnefoy, Francois Villon and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Born in Rhode Island and educated at Princeton University, Kinnell served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and has been recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Medal of Merit of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Frost Medal. He has been appointed to lecture positions abroad and taught widely in the United States. He is now retired and lives in Vermont, where he was the poet laureate from 1989-1993.

Kinnell’s reading will be followed by a book sale and signing. For further information, contact Jennifer Blackburn in the Poetry Center office at (413) 585-4891 or Ellen Doré Watson, Poetry Center director, at (413) 585-3368.

For disability access information or to request accommodations, call (413) 585-2407. To request a sign language interpreter specifically, call (413) 585-2071 (voice or TTY) or e-mail ODS@smith.edu. All requests must be made at least 10 days prior to the event.