The Office of the President presents “Nurturing the Compassionate Community: An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton” on Monday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom. The event, co-sponsored by the VOICES Reading Series, will feature poetry readings and reflections to honor St. Mary’s College’s former Distinguished Professor of the Humanities Lucille Clifton. To register for the event in advance, visit www.smcm.edu/lucille-clifton/.
Li-Young Lee and Leah Naomi Green will perform original works of poetry during the event.
Lee is the author of “The Undressing” (W. W. Norton, 2018); “Behind My Eyes” (W. W. Norton, 2008); “Book of My Nights” (BOA Editions, 2001), which won the 2002 William Carlos Williams Award; “The City in Which I Love You” (BOA Editions, 1990), which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and “Rose” (BOA Editions, 1986), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award.
He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer's Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, the I. B. Lavan Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship.
Green’s first full-length poetry collection, “The More Extravagant Feast” (Graywolf Press, 2020) was selected by Lee as the winner of the 2019 Walt Whitman Award, given by the Academy of American Poets. Her chapbook, “The Ones We Have,” received the 2012 Flying Trout Chapbook prize. She is associate editor of Shenandoah, and teaches English and environmental studies at Washington and Lee University.
Green grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. She received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine.
Lucille Clifton was one of the most distinguished, decorated, and beloved poets of her time. She won the National Book Award for Poetry and was the first Black recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Her honors and awards give testament to the universality of her unique and resonant voice. In 1987, she became the first author to have two books of poetry – “Good Woman” and “Next” – chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She was named a Literary Lion of New York Public Library in 1996, served as chancellor of the Academy of American Poetry and was elected a fellow in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
