Pulitzer Poet Yusef Komunyakaa to Read from His Work

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (October 25, 2004) — Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa will deliver the seventh annual Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Reading at Vassar College on Thursday November 4, 2004, at 6:00 p.m. in the Villard Room of the College Center. A Council of the Humanities Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University, Komunyakaa has published eleven collections of poetry and won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Neon Vernacular (1993).

The Washington Post Book World described Yusef Komunyakaa as, "A poet of the human heart in all its joys and horrors, fiercely present as it pounds away at the center of every human being's consciousness. He enlarges our idea of what poetry is, challenging us to go beyond our own narrow definitions." Paul Kane, professor of English at Vassar, adds, "He is certainly one of our most eminent poets and someone who writes from an unusually rich background, growing up in the rural South, working as a military journalist in Vietnam, and exploring the dynamic relations between jazz and poetry."

Komunyakaa's poetry collections also include Copacetic (1984), I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), Dien Cai Dau (1988), and Magic City (1992), and he was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for Thieves of Paradise (1998), Most recently he edited the anthology Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (2003), and he has recorded the spoken word cd The Best Cigarette (1997).

In 1999 Komunyakaa was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and his many other commendations include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University, the Thomas Forcade Award, the William Faulkner Prize from the University of Rennes, the Dark Room Poetry Prize, Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize, and the Hanes Poetry Prize. He received the Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, where he served as a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Louisiana Arts Council.

The Elizabeth Bishop Poetry Series at Vassar College is funded through the gift of Priscilla H. Rockwell '47 and H.P. Davis Rockwell, with additional support from the college's Helen Forster Novy '28 fund for visiting scholars. Yusef Komunyakaa's reading is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by the Department of English and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty. For more information contact the Department of English at (845) 437-5950.

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, October 25th, 2004.