CREATIVITY, MYSTICISM, AND GRACE
Two Thursdays and One Sunday
Thursday, April 7, 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet
Street
Thursday, April 14, Noon - 1:30 p.m., 1323 North Boulevard
Sunday, April 17, 6:00 p.m., Brazos Bookstore, 2421 Bissonnet Street
April 7: Mysticism for Beginners is the title
of one of Adam Zagajewski’s collections of poetry and of one of
his poems. Using this theme as a starting point, he will address the
spiritual element in contemporary poetry and ask, “Can poetry
go beyond mysticism for beginners?” Adam Zagajewski was born in
Lvov, Poland, in 1945. He is the author of three more books of poetry:
Tremor, Canvas, and Without End; and four
essay collections: Solidarity, Solitude, Two Cities,
and Another Beauty; and the newly published A Defense of
Ardor. A recent recipient of the Neustadt prize, Zagajewski teaches
at the University of Houston.
April 14: In this lecture, “The Enigma of the Creative
Process,” Edward Hirsch will explore the extraordinary magic,
nature, and inspiration behind creativity. Edward Hirsch is the author
of six volumes of poetry, including Lay Back the Darkness,
Wild Gratitude, The Night Parade, and Earthly
Measures, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award.
His book, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry,
is an exploration of poetry and feeling. Mr. Hirsch has received a Guggenheim
Fellowship, the Prix de Rome, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters
Award for Literature. In 1998 he was granted a MacArthur Fellowship
and is currently president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
April 17: A Reading by Grace Paley. Grace Paley is a poet and
short story writer. Among her works are Little Disturbances of Man,
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Later the Same Day,
and most recently, Begin Again: Collected Poems. Ms. Paley
taught for years at Sarah Lawrence College and City College of New York
and has for many years been active in anti-war, feminist, and other
social causes. Among her awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant
from the National Endowment for the Arts, an award from the National
Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Senior Fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Arts. She is currently the Poet Laureate of Vermont.
