August 21, 2012 
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Like most children, Rick Hilles’ mother read to him at a young age, but few consider that experience to be archetypal.
Hilles, poet-in-residence for Week Nine, compared reading and writing poetry in his life to a newborn drinking his or her mother’s milk — they are vital nutrients in surviving.
Hilles, an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University, will present a Brown Bag lecture, “On Poetry and Sustainability,” at 12:15 p.m. today on the Alumni Hall porch.
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August 14, 2012 0 Comments
obert Frost once said free verse is like playing tennis without a net.
Gabriel Welsch, poet-in-residence for Week Eight, will keep that in mind during a Brown Bag Lecture, “Finding the Net: The Urge for Order in Contemporary Poetry” at 12:15 p.m. today on the Alumni Hall porch.
His lecture will focus on how contemporary poets have come of age in a time when there are not as many dominant modes to work with — as a result, poets tend to work in “received forms,” which already exist.
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August 7, 2012 0 Comments
Poet-in-residence Julia Kasdorf will present a Brown Bag lecture, “Metaphor, the Artful Lie,” at 12:15 p.m. today at the Alumni Hall porch.
Kasdorf, whose poems have won a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, said she often returns to metaphor in her own writing and will examine how language can deceive readers and reveal truth.
“I’m going to be talking about metaphor as a principle that structures our thought, and as the basis of poetic imagination, and as a way of thinking that is not literally accurate as we think of it,” Kasdorf said.
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June 26, 2012 0 Comments
Joan Murray was traveling on an Amtrak train a few days after Sept. 11, and as it headed to New York City, she felt “gripped by sorrow, fear and uncertainty about the future.”
She ventured to the cafe car for a coffee and noticed a group of men. Their clothing was casual, but their demeanor had a sense of mission.
It dawned on her that they were firefighters, which they confirmed when she asked, and they were on their way “to dig” at ground zero.
“I hope you find some survivors,” Murray said.
She went back to her seat and wrote “Survivors — Found.”
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August 23, 2011 Comments Off
The last poet-in-residence of the season, Nancy Krygowski, will give a Brown Bag lecture called “The List Poem: More Than The Sum of its Parts” at 12:15 p.m. today at the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall.
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August 16, 2011 Comments Off
Returning poet-in-residence Philip Brady will speak on the fractured landscape of poetry in his lecture “Ginsberg in Ballydehob: The Dissolving Canon of American Poetry” at 12:15 p.m. today at the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall.
The name of his speech comes from an old Irish poet who once asked Brady, with a wag of the finger, “Who are your contemporaries?” In an age of thousands of small publishers, new graduate programs, poetry ’zines and blogs, his answer is a bit more complicated than it seems.
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August 9, 2011 Comments Off
“Translation is not a matter of words only; it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture,” said English writer Anthony Burgess.
At 12:15 p.m. today at the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall, Mihaela Moscaliuc, the poet-in-residence, will speak about translation’s pleasures, frustrations and current debates in her lecture “The Poetics and Politics of Translation.”
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August 2, 2011 Comments Off
Even shorter than a short story, a work of flash fiction can tell a tale in less than a page. Like its cousin the prose poem, it is short and sweet but packs a wallop.
Laura Kasischke will give her lecture “Flash Fiction and Prose Poetry: A Discussion of the Forms” at 12:15 p.m. today at the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall.
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Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. Over the course of nine weeks, more than 170,000 visitors will participate in programs, classes and community events for all ages—all within the beautiful setting of a historic lakeside village. Learn more →
