Physician/Poet Rafael Campo to Lecture Freshmen on Craft of Writing

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (September 6, 2004) – The acclaimed writer, professor of medicine, and practicing internist Dr. Rafael Campo will deliver the annual William Starr Freshman Course lecture on writing and its craft on Thursday, September 23 at 5:30pm, in the Villard Room of the College Center at Vassar College. Among his many works, Dr. Campo's poetry collection The Other Man Was Me (Arte Púlico Press) won the 1993 National Poetry Series Award.

His collection What the Body Told (Duke University Press) earned Campos the Lambda Literary Award for Poetry, and his book of essays The Poetry of Healing: A Doctor's Education in Empathy, Identity, and Desire (W.W. Norton) was recognized with the Lambda Literary Award for memoir. His poetry collection Diva (Duke), supported by a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Campo has also won the Annual Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Academy of Arts and Sciences. Landscape with Human Figure, Campo's most recent poetry collection, won the gold medal from ForeWord. In his newest book, The Healing Art: A Doctor's Black Bag of Poetry (W.W. Norton), Campo writes about poetry and healing.

Campo has also written for a number of prominent periodicals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Los Angeles Times, New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, The Nation, The New Republic, and The Paris Review, and his speaking appearance have included the Library of Congress.

A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Campo currently teaches and practices general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where his medical practice serves mostly Latinos, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people, and people with HIV infection. He has held visiting writer, scholar and poet positions at Amherst College, the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, and Brandeis University.

For more information, please call Kathy Brown, Director of Academic Services at (845) 437-5305. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Cathy Jennings in the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Monday, September 6th, 2004.