Poet Matthew Zapruder on 'Why Poetry,' April 12th

Why Poetry EventAward-winning poet Matthew Zapruder comes to Mason Thursday, April 12, to share selections from his own poetry and discuss his new book Why Poetry. The event takes place at 4:30 p.m. in Merten Hall, Room 1202.

Zapruder is the author of several collections of poetry, including Sun Bear (2014), Come On All You Ghosts (2010), The Pajamaist (2006), and American Linden (2002). He collaborated with painter Chris Uphues on For You in Full Bloom (2009) and cotranslated, with historian Radu Ioanid, Romanian poet Eugen Jebeleanu’s last collection, Secret Weapon: Selected Late Poems (2008). Zapruder’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the May Sarton Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Washington Post says that Zapruder’s latest book, Why Poetry, “makes the bold assertion that understanding poetry requires ‘forgetting many incorrect things we have learned in school’ and accepting ‘what is right before us on the page.’” The review concludes that the book is “a consistently surprising work that shows novices how they can navigate poetry while providing a wonderful re-education for anyone who was taught to dissect a poem as if it were a dead frog.”

 

The reading and discussion are free and open to the public.