Poetry Off the Shelf with Tony Hoagland and Dean Young

CHICAGO—The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, announces a reading and discussion in honor of National Poetry Month with two of poetry’s sharpest wits—Tony Hoagland and Dean Young.

What: Poetry Off the Shelf with Tony Hoagland and Dean Young
When: Wednesday, April 4, 6:00 pm
Where: Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
Chicago Public Library
Harold Washington Library Center
400 South State Street

Admission is free, but seating is limited and reservations are required.
For reservations call (312) 787.7070.

Poetry Off the Shelf is a landmark Chicago reading and conversation series that regularly makes contributors to Poetry magazine available to discuss essential themes in their work and answer audience questions.

In 2005, Tony Hoagland received the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award, recognizing a poet’s contribution to humor in American poetry, and also the Folger Shakespeare Library’s O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, for teaching as well as writing. His most recent book, a collection of essays titled Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Craft (Graywolf, 2006), displays Hoagland’s signature abilities to entertain and to instruct as he forages through central questions about how poems behave and how they are made. In these taut, illuminating essays, Hoagland explores matters of poetic craft—metaphor, tone, rhetorical and compositional strategies—in a buoyant conversational style less that of the scholar than of the serious enthusiast and practitioner. Tony Hoagland teaches at the University of Houston and in the Warren Wilson MFA program.

Dean Young is one of the most iconic voices in poetry today. In his new book of poems, embryoyo (Believer Books, 2007), Young once again sets about taking some cracks at the piñata of commonplace reality. No one is ever unsure if they’ve read a poem by Dean Young; the power and sheer curiosity of the poems in this book leave a mark. Young has published seven previous collections of poetry, most recently Elegy on Toy Piano, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Skid, a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. He teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Co-sponsored with the Chicago Public Library, admission is free, but reservations are required. Call (312) 787.7070.

For further details, and to sign up for e-mail notices of Poetry Foundation events, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.

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About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine and one of the largest literary organizations in the world, exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.

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