Revered Poet Donald Revell Kicks Off WriterSpeak Series Nov. 17

SAN LUIS OBISPO – “A writer of singular talent and ambition… he creates some of the most beautiful poetry in our language,” raves the Harvard Review of Donald Revell.

The award winning poet shares his latest collection at Cal Poly on Friday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. in Phillips Hall, Room 124, at the Performing Arts Center. The recital is free and open to the public.

Revell is the author of eight volumes of poetry, most recently “Pennyweight Windows” (2005). His last collection, “My Mojave”(2003), was honored with the 2004 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. In 1990, Revell won the esteemed PEN Center Award for Poetry for the book “The New Dark Ages” (1990).

His other works include “Arcady” (2002); “There Are Three” (1998); “Beautiful Shirt” (1994); “Erasures” (1992); “The Gaza of Winter” (1988); and “From the AbandonedCities” (1983). Donald Revell has also translated two volumes of Guillaume Apollinaire’s poetry: “Alcools” (1995) and “The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems.”

Poetry Flash praises Revell’s work as “a kind of poetic inner light.”

The Library Journal heralds the eclectic style of Revell: “The peace of nature is disturbed by a distant conflagration, by the rattling postures of stalled war…In tight, focused lines, Revell creates a delicate, exacting music, chimes and silences that hold you in their rhythm and explore the sad deserts we all live in.”

His honors include the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and a Shestack Prize from American Poetry Review.

Revell is currently teaching creative writing and American literature at the University of
Utah.

WriterSpeak Series is sponsored by the English Department and Cal Poly Arts. For more information, contact Adam Hill of the English Department faculty at 756-1622 or
ahill@calpoly.edu.

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