Bucks County Community College is hosting the first Wordsmiths poetry event of the 2024 spring semester on Friday, February 21st, at 7:30 P.M. in Tyler Hall 142 at the Bucks Newtown Campus.
The event is free and open to the public, with the help of funding from the Committee for Cultural Affairs.
Lisa Sewell, author of The Way Out, Name Withheld, and Long Corridor (which won the 2009 Keystone Chapbook Award), is one of the featured poets. Her collection Impossible Object won the 2014 Tenth Gate Prize from the Word Works Press.
She has received grants and awards from prestigious organizations, including the Leeway Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Sewell has also held residencies at renowned centers like the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo.
She has edited several essay collections for Wesleyan University Press with a primary focus on twenty-first-century North American poetry, including her work with the North American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Beyond Lyric and Language, with Kazim Ali and American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics, with Claudia Rankine.
She is currently part of the editorial board at Alice James Books and a creative writing professor at the University of Villanova.
Thomas Devaney, a Pew Fellow in the Arts, is the second poet featured in the event. He is the author of five books, including Getting to Philadelphia, Calamity Jane, and The Picture that Remains. He is also the co-director of the 2020 Greenhouse Media film Bicentennial City.
Devaney holds a master’s degree in urban design from Drexel University and works as the communications and engagement manager at Drexel’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. His thesis, Reimagining Urban Parks: Philadelphia’s FDR Park as a Space for People and Nature, highlights his passion for improving urban spaces.and ongoing involvement with city spaces as well as potential fixes for numerous issues that can come into play when trying to make a concrete jungle greener.
This event is a great opportunity to experience the work of two veteran poets and to engage with them by asking questions after the event.
All students are encouraged to attend. If you have any further questions, please contact Dr. Ethel Rackin by email: [email protected]
