Young poets representing some 20 Boston area colleges 和 universities will gather at BC to present their work at the annual Greater Boston Intercollegiate Undergraduate Poetry Festival on April 25. The free, public event will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Murray Function Room of the Yawkey Athletic Center.
All participants read original work at the event, 和 a chapbook of poetry by the participants is published in conjunction with the festival.
The evening will begin with a keynote address by extensively published local writer Andrea Cohen, director of the Writers House at Merrimack College 和 the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge. The recipient of a PEN Discovery award 和 Glimmer Train’s Short Fiction Award, 科恩是 Unfathoming, 皮草不是我的, 肯塔基赛马, 长除法 和 The Cartographer’s Vision. Her poems 和 stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, Threepenny Review, The Atlantic, 和 新共和国, 在其他出版物中.
Cohen is “a master of concision, a poet of intense brevity 和 utility,” according to Associate Professor of the Practice of English Susan Roberts, who took the festival's organizational reins from Professor of English Suzanne Matson during Matson’s sabbatical.
“Her poems are largely made up of short lines (with genius line breaks), a focus on interior music 和 repeating sounds that make her images both unique 和 potent. She’s also funny in a wry, effective way, able to define the human predicament in a fresh voice.”
萧玉萱, a BC senior from Taiwan who began writing poetry as a fourth grader, was selected to present her poem “Twenty Minutes to Jing An.” She describes the poem as portraying her relationship with China but hopes it also resonates with audience members.
“Its inclusion in the festival encourages me to continue writing from different perspectives, 和 I hope ‘Twenty Minutes to Jing An’ allows readers who are unfamiliar with China to gain a better underst和ing of the country’s culture.”
Her inspiration for the work “came from hearing the words, ‘Next stop: People’s Square,’ while I was on a metro ride in Shanghai last summer,她解释道. “I knew immediately that I needed to write something about China, about Mao Space — Mao’s former residence in Shanghai — being surrounded by skyscrapers in downtown Shanghai, about the complexities of China’s national identity.
“As a Taiwanese person who grew up in China but received an American education, I feel like an outsider no matter which culture I’m writing about. But I hope that through my writing, I can confront my own ambivalence toward each culture, 和 help others become conscious of those same intricacies.”
The final stanza of her poem reads:
Next stop: the train churns on,
towards a Communism in which only Americans still believe.
火车颠簸着前进。
对毛
Space in the heart of the city. And hidden behind balconies
晾着的衣服，
The student cheers for this moment in time
When he can finally watch history repeat.
毕业后, Hsiao — a psychology major with minors in English 和 psychoanalytic studies — plans to return to Taiwan to pursue a project that encourages writing: She hopes to start a book club 和 writing workshop.
“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities BC has given me to develop my writing, whether it’s through my writing workshops, 写为 的高度, 或者课堂上的论文. I hope to always find the time 和 energy to continue reading 和 writing. I like writing poetry because it allows us to capture a single feeling or moment in our everyday lives, sort of like a painting or a photograph.”
今年春天是12岁th consecutive year that 电子游戏软件 hosts the event, which rotated among a dozen participating schools from the mid-1980s to 2001, 和 then was suspended until 2006. With campus support, it was revived that year by Matson, with 电子游戏软件 as the host institution.
Roberts looks forward to welcoming Cohen to campus. “Having dealt with many issues 和 even controversies within the current American poetry scene, I think she’ll be able to offer the students at the festival a look at what a gifted wordsmith can still do, how poetry can still surprise 和 be an effective — even necessary — force in our current discourse.”
Sponsors include Poetry Days, the Morrissey College of 艺术s 和 Sciences Dean's Office 和 电子游戏软件杂志. 更多的信息 在这里.
–Rosanne Pellegrini | University Communications