VOICES Reading Series presents a poetry reading from r. erica doyle on Thursday, February 20 at 8:15 p.m. in Daugherty-Palmer Commons. doyle’s debut collection, “proxy” won the 2014 Norma Farber First Book Awar from the Poetry Society of America and was a Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry.
The VOICES Reading Series has been dedicated for nearly forty years to bringing emerging and established writers from across the nation to read for the St. Mary’s community. These readings typically take place on a monthly basis in the Daugherty-Palmer Commons (DPC) on Thursday nights at 8:15 and are free and open to the public. Each evening has a simple format: the invited poet or prose writer is introduced by a St. Mary’s faculty member and reads for about 40 minutes. At the receptions that follow each reading, audience members have a chance to mingle with the visiting writer who has just read aloud from his or her work. Over the years, St. Mary’s has been honored to hear the voices of poets and prose writers such as Mark Doty, Sharon Olds, Toni Morrison, and Lucille Clifton—and many more.
In the early eighties, Michael Glaser asked poet Lucille Clifton, Maryland’s Poet Laureate from 1979-1985, to visit St. Mary’s for the first time. Knowing that she loved Maryland, Michael Glaser suggested that Clifton become a repeat visitor to the College—and she did. For close to two decades, Clifton taught at St. Mary’s and mentored student poets here.
Clifton’s presence also became the inspiration for the newly emerging VOICES program. While the summertime Festival of Poets and Poetry had been gaining reputation and momentum, the organizers wanted fall and spring semester students to have exposure to the world of contemporary literature that the summer festival brought to campus. The reading series was called “VOICES” because of Clifton’s insistence that the emphasis of the series should be on hearing voices of justice, fairness, and human compassion. After all, the VOICES series began, in the words of Michael Glaser, “not because poetry matters, but because what poetry is about matters.”
Read more on the history of the VOICES Reading Series here.
VOICES gratefully acknowledges the support of Arts Alliance, the Lecture and Fine Arts Committee, the Department of History, and the Department of English.