Award-winning poet, Georgetown professor next up in Frostic Series

KALAMAZOO—An award-winning Maryland poet will read from her works later this month at Western Michigan University as part of the fall 2013 Frostic Reading Series.

Carolyn Forché will read at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, in the Little Theatre. The event is free and open to the public.

Carolyn Forché

Forché is the author of four books of poetry. Her first poetry collection, "Gathering The Tribes," won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. In 1977, she traveled to Spain to translate the work of Salvadoran-exiled poet Claribel Alegría. Upon her return, she received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, which enabled her to travel to El Salvador and work as a human rights advocate.

Her second book, "The Country Between Us," received the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay di Castagnola Award and was also the Lamont Selection of the Academy of American Poets. Her third book of poetry, "The Angel of History," was chosen for the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

"Blue Hour" is her fourth collection of poems. She is currently at work on a memoir of her years in El Salvador, Lebanon, South Africa and France. In addition to Alegría, she's translated works by Robert Desnos, and her articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Esquire, Mother Jones and others.

The recipient of three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, Forché is the Lannan Visiting Professor of Poetry and professor of English at Georgetown University.

Forché's reading is co-sponsored by WMU's Prague Summer Program, an annual, intensive creative writing study abroad experience featuring some of the world's biggest literary names.

The series

The Frostic Reading Series presents acclaimed creative writers from across the nation and beyond. Every year, a diverse range of readings that encompass poetry, fiction, nonfiction and drama attract both on- and off-campus audiences.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/english/events/frostic.html.