Upcoming Residencies
MFA students may elect to begin the program during one of two start terms each year. The start terms, one in January and one in June, coincide with the on-campus periods of residency. We are planning upcoming residencies for:
- January 5 through January 15, 2009
- June 22 through July 2, 2009
- January 5 through January 15, 2010
- June 21 through July 1, 2010
Poetry Readings June 2009
Tuesday June 23rd
Alicia Ostriker & Michael Waters
Wednesday June 24th
Joan Larkin & Ira Sadoff
Thursday June 25th
Aracelis Girmay & Anne Marie Macari
Friday June 26th
Gerald Stern & Jean Valentine
Saturday June 27th
Peter Cole & Jim Haba
Monday June 29th
Carey Salerno & Jonathan Thirkield
Tuesday June 30th
Lynn Emanuel & Ross Gay
All readings take place at 7:30 PM in Mead Hall, the Founder’s Room, at Drew University
Peter Cole is the author of three books of poetry, Rift, Hymns & Qualms, and most recently Things on Which I’ve Stumbled. He is a prize-winning translator; his many books of translation include, So What: New & Selected Poems, by Taha Muhammad Ali, J’Accuse, by Aharon Shabtai, and the anthology of Medieval Hebrew poetry, The Dream of the Poem. Cole has received numerous honors for his work, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, the PEN Translation Award, a TLS Translation Prize, and he was a recipient of a 2007 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Cole lives in Jerusalem where he co-edits Ibis Editions.
Lynn Emanuel is the author of four books, Hotel Fiesta, The Dig, Then Suddenly, and the forthcoming Noose and Hook (University of Pittsburgh Press). Her work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry, and she has been a recipient of numerous awards including the Eric Matthieu King Award from the Academy of American Poets, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and a National Poetry Series Award. Emanuel teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and has taught at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference and The Warren Wilson Program in Creative Writing.
Ross Gay is the author of Against Which, published by Cavan Kerry Press in 2006. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Margie, among many others. He is a Cave Canem fellow, and a former Bread Loaf scholar. He teaches at Indiana University at Bloomington and is on the faculty of the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry.
Aracelis Girmay’s first book was Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007), for which she was awarded a GLCA New Writer’s Award and a Pan African Literary Fellowship. Girmay is a Cave Canem graduate and she has been awarded grants from the Watson Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, such as Ploughshares, The Indiana Review, and Callaloo. Girmay has taught at Queens College and is on the faculty of the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry.
Jim Haba has published two chapbooks—Love Poems and Thirty-One Poems—and edited the best-selling The Language of Life, a collection of poems and interviews that accompanied the eight-hour 1995 Bill Moyers’ PBS video series of the same name. From 1986 through 2008 he designed and produced all twelve biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festivals. During that period he also directed the Dodge Poetry-in-the-Schools Program. He taught at Rowan University from 1972-2003. He is also an active visual artist.
Joan Larkin’s most recent collection is My Body: New and Selected Poems (Hanging Loose, 2007) is the winner of the Audre Lorde Award. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is also the winner of the Lambda Award for Cold River. She has taught at Brooklyn College, Sarah Lawrence College, and is on the faculty of the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry.
Anne Marie Macari’s third book is She Heads Into the Wilderness (Autumn House Press, 2008). She is also the author of Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005) and Ivory Cradle, which won the APR/Honickman first book prize in 2000, chosen by Robert Creeley. She won the James Dickey Prize from Five Points. Macari directs and teaches in the Drew Low-Residency MFA Program in Poetry.
Alicia Ostriker, a poet and critic, has published eleven volumes of poetry, including The Volcano Sequence and No Heaven. Her most recent book of prose is For the Love of God: The Bible as an Open Book, and she is also the author of the groundbreaking Stealing the Language: the Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America. Twice a National Book Award finalist, she has also received awards from the Poetry Society of America and the Paterson Poetry Center, among others. Ostriker is Professor Emerita at Rutgers and she is on the faculty of the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry.
Ira Sadoff’s seven collections of poetry include most recently Barter and Grazing (Illinois). A widely anthologized poet he is also the author of a book on contemporary poetry, aesthetics, and politics called History Matters (Iowa). Recipient of grants and Prizes from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, and The Poetry Society of America, he currently holds the Jeremiah Roberts Chair in English at Colby College; he has also taught in the MFA programs at the Iowa Writers Workshop, the University of Virginia, Warren Wilson College, and is on the faculty of the Drew MFA Program in Poetry.
Carey Salerno is the author of the award-winning book, Shelter, (2009). She is a graduate of the MFA program of New England College. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, such as Rattle and Natural Bridge. She is currently the executive director of Alice James Books and lives in Maine.
Gerald Stern is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He has written fourteen books of poetry, including Save the Last Dance, and American Sonnets. His book This Time, New and Selected Poems, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1998. Stern has also received the Lamont Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Ruth Lilly Prize. In 2005, he won the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. Stern is Distinguished Poet in Residence at the Drew Low-Residency MFA Program in Poetry.
Jonathan Thirkield graduated from Wesleyan University and the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop. His book, The Waker’s Corridor, won the 2008 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. His poems have appeared in many journals, such as New American Writing, Colorado Review, and American Letters & Commentary. He lives in New York.
Jean Valentine won the National Book Award for Door in the Mountain, New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan, 2004). She is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently, Little Boat (Wesleyan, 2007), and the chapbook Lucy (Sarabande Books). Dream Barker, her first book, received the Yale Younger Poets award in 1965. Valentine has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Prize, and she is currently the New York State Poet Laureate. Valentine is Distinguished Poet in Residence at the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry.
Michael Waters’ eight books of poetry include Darling Vulgarity (Boa, 2006), which was a 2006 finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (Boa, 2001). He has co-edited Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as four Pushcart Prizes. Waters teaches at Monmouth University and the Drew University MFA Program.
