UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Award-winning poet James Brasfield, senior lecturer in English at Penn State, will kick off the spring 2017 Rolling Reading Series with a reading in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 19. The reading is free and open to the public.
Brasfield is the author of two poetry collections: “Ledger of the Crossroad” and his newest collection, “Infinite Altars,” which was published in August 2016 by Louisiana State University Press. The two-time Senior Fulbright Fellow has won a Pushcart Prize and has also received poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His poems have been featured in AGNI, Chicago Review, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, The Iowa Review, and many other publications.
Brasfield is also an award-winning translator, having won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for his work on “The Selected Poems of Oleh Lysheha.” He received his bachelor’s degree from Armstrong State University and his master of fine arts from Columbia University.
Vivian Gornick, author of “The Odd Woman and the City,” said this about “Infinite Altars”: “This book makes one realize anew the power of narration in poetry. In Jim Brasfield’s gifted hands it brings to remarkable life the smallest moment, the oldest myth, the acuteness of time.” The Prairie Schooner offered the following additional praise: “Atmospheric and reflective, these poems travel with equal ease through the world of fine arts and the places where we live, highlighting the vivid sights and sounds of each in turn.”
The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. It receives generous support from Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts, the Department of English, the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment, the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing, and University Libraries.
A full listing of upcoming readings can be found at sites.psu.edu/psuwriters/.