Award-winning poet to visit ASU's West campus

<p>Arizona State University’s West campus welcomes poet, critic, biographer and multi-disciplinary scholar Joan Retallack on Thursday, April 8. She is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Humanities at Bard College, where she is also a senior fellow at the Institute for Writing &amp; Thinking and the director of the Language &amp; Thinking Program.</p><separator></separator><p>Retallack will present a reading of her poetry from noon to 1 p.m. and a public lecture starting at 5:30 p.m., which will be followed by a reception with the author. Both events take place in La Sala Ballroom in the University Center Building on the West campus, 4701 W. Thunderbird Road in Phoenix, and are free and open to the public. (Visitor parking costs $2 per hour.)</p><separator></separator><p>The evening lecture is titled “Poetry and the Mirror of Nature,” and is described as an unusual, experimental essay that moves in and out of different kinds of texts as it argues that some kinds of investigations of our worlds can only be done through poetry.</p><separator></separator><p>Known among her peers as a “poet among philosophers and a philosopher among poets,” Retallack is the author of numerous books of poetry, winning many awards including the Columbia Book Award, a Lannan Foundation Poetry Award (1998–99), the America Award in Belles-Lettres, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Retallack is the author of numerous critical studies, including “The Poethical Wager” (2003) and a volume on Gertrude Stein (2008) and John Cage (1996).</p><separator></separator><p>Retallack’s visit to ASU’s West campus is hosted by the Philosophy, Rhetoric and Literature Research Cluster, with support provided by the Institute for Humanities Research and the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.

For more information, call 602-543-ARTS (2787).</p>