ANNAPOLIS, MD (August 12, 2024) – In partnership with Annapolis Home Magazine, St. John’s College presents a new fall series called Poets in the Conversation Room. This series will be hosted by renowned poet, author, playwright, and tenth Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri.

“Annapolis needs poetry,” says Kymberly Taylor, poet and Editor-In-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine. “It needs this incredible art form that helps us feel things beyond what we hear and read online, on television, and in the news.”

Cavalieri will be joined by world-class, award-winning poets including David Keplinger, Carolyn Forche, and Remica Bingham-Richer. The fourth poet, Andrew Wong, will read poetry from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) while in conversation with St. John’s faculty member Stella Zhu, who is a Chinese translator.

“There couldn’t be a more fitting partnership for the college than Poets in the Conversation Room,” says St. John’s College President Nora Demleitner. “At the college, students spend four years reading and discussing great classical poets – from Homer to Baudelaire. This is a wonderful opportunity to expose them to more modern poetry while also welcoming and engaging the Annapolis community.”

Poetry readings will be held the first Saturday of every month beginning from September through December at 2 p.m. in the St. John’s College Conversation Room, located in Mellon Hall, 60 College Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401. Readings will be 40 minutes followed by a 20-minute question period. This poetry series is free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Additional dates are being planned for the spring. Works by the featured poets will be on display at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library and available to purchase at the St. John’s College Bookstore.

“I think it’s going to create a tremendous audience because it’s also entertaining,” says Cavalieri. “Poetry speaks to how we feel and how it is to be alive in this world—and who does not want to hear that?”

Poets in the Conversation Room Schedule:

• September 7, 2 p.m. David Keplinger

David Keplinger, recipient of many prestigious poetry awards and fellowships, explores how the written word can hold grief and reflect complex emotions. He heads the MFA Program in Poetry at American University in Washington, D.C. and was recently named Scholar-Teacher of the Year by President Sylvia Burwell. His latest poetry collection is Ice (Milkweed Editions).

• October 5, 2 p.m.: Carolyn Forché

Carolyn Forché, a world-renowned poet, editor, and human rights activist, is best known for profound poems inspired by her travel to El Salvador, where she witnessed firsthand the brutality against Salvadorans during civil war in Central America. She was a Lannan Professor of Poetry and English at Georgetown University and a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Finalist. Her latest poetry book is In the Lateness of the World (Penguin Press).

• November 2, 2 p.m.: Remica Bingham-Risher

Remica Bingham-Risher, director of the poetry program at Old Dominion University, writes about race, lineage, women’s rights, and faith. An Affrilachian poet shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and winner of the Diode Editions Book Award, her latest collection is Home Swept Home (Wesleyan University Press).

• December 7, 2 p.m.: Chinese poet Andrew Wong (in conversation with a St. John’s faculty member Stella Zhu)

Andrew W. F. Wong, born in Shanghai in 1943 is a former Chinese political activist and translator of ancient Chinese poems into English verse, using the quatrain form. He was the last President of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council before sovereignty reverted in 1997 to China. Now retired and living in Washington, D.C., in 2021 he published an unprecedented translation of original poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), 60 Chinese Poems in English Verse.

Stella Zhu (A16) has been a tutor at St. John’s College since 2022. She is a translator of poetry and literature, and reviews Chinese books in translation. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame.

For more information about “Poets in the Conversation Room,” visit Annapolis Home Magazine’s website. To learn about other events at St. John’s College, including art museum exhibits, lectures, concerts, and theatrical productions, see the Events Calendar.

ABOUT ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE

St. John’s College is the most distinctive liberal arts college in the country due to our interdisciplinary program, in which 200 of the most revolutionary great books from across 3,000 years of human thought are explored in student-driven, discussion-based classes for undergraduates, graduates and life-long adult learners. By probing world-changing ideas in literature, philosophy, mathematics, science, music, history, and more, students leave St. John’s with a foundation for success in such fields as law, government, research, STEM, media, and education. Located on two campuses in two historic state capitals—Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico—St. John’s is the third-oldest college in the United States and has been hailed as the “most forward-thinking, future-proof college in America” by Quartz and as a “high-achieving angel hovering over the landscape of American higher education” by the Los Angeles Times. Learn more at sjc.edu.