Saint Martin’s to host poetry reading by prominent Washington poet
March 18, 2013
LACEY, Wash. – Saint Martin’s University will welcome award-winning poet
Bruce Beasley for a reading from his latest poetry collection,
Theophobia, beginning at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, in the
Benedictine Reading Room of O’Grady Library on Saint Martin’s Lacey campus,
5000 Abbey Way SE. The event is free and open to the public.
Beasley, an English professor at Western Washington University and the
author of seven collections of poems, will also lead a discussion about
the steps involved in the process of writing.
“Student writers from throughout the community, even if they are not
poets, can learn useful tips from Professor Beasley on how to put their
ideas onto paper, and then organize them into a full creative work ready
for publication,” says Tannia King, president of Saint Martin’s chapter
of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society.
As a Catholic institution in the Benedictine tradition, Saint Martin’s
is the perfect setting for a reading by Beasley, who is well known as a
Catholic poet, according to Jamie Olson, Ph.D., assistant professor of
English and faculty sponsor for Sigma Tau Delta.
“The ornate yet vigorous language of Beasley’s poetry has always been
driven by his engagement with the world of ideas,” Olson says. “His
continued emphasis on the Christian intellectual tradition is something
that should resonate deeply with our community.”
Calling Beasley a profound thinker and moving writer, Olson adds the
English Department is excited about his visit.
Beasley’s previous collection, Lord Brain, an extended meditation on
neuroscience, cosmology, theology and language, won the University of
Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series Award in 2005. Beasley also
won the 1996 Colorado Prize for Poetry and the 1994 Ohio State
University Press/Journal Award. He has won fellowships from the
National Endowment for the Arts and the Artist Trust of Washington,
as well as three Pushcart Prizes in poetry. Beasley’s work appears
in The Pushcart Book of Poetry: The Best Poems from the First Thirty
Years of the Pushcart Prize, as well as other major anthologies. His
poems appear widely in journals that include The Kenyon Review,
Southern Review, New American Writing and Virginia Quarterly Review.
Beasley’s appearance at Saint Martin’s University is sponsored by
the English Department, the Saint Martin’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta,
the University’s Learning and Writing Center, and the O’Grady Library.
Saint Martin’s University is an independent four-year,
coeducational university located on a wooded campus of more than 300
acres in Lacey, Washington. Established in 1895 by the Catholic
Order of Saint Benedict, the University is one of 14 Benedictine
colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, and the
only one west of the Rocky Mountains. Saint Martin’s University
prepares students for successful lives through its 23 majors and
seven graduate programs spanning the liberal arts, business,
education, nursing and engineering. Saint Martin’s welcomes more
than 1,100 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students from
many ethnic and religious backgrounds to its Lacey campus, and 300
more undergraduate students to its extension campuses located at
Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Centralia College. Visit the Saint
Martin’s University website at
www.stmartin.edu.
For additional information:
Jamie Olson, Ph.D.
Assistant professor of English
360-438-4302
JOlson@stmartin.edu
Meg Nugent Dwyer
Media relations manager
360-412-6126;
MDwyer@stmartin.edu