David Yezzi

Poet-in-Residence: 2009

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

4:30 pm Craft Lecture

7:00 pm Poetry Reading

Philips Autograph Library

David Yezzi’s books of poetry are The Hidden Model (2003) and Azores (2008), a Slate “best book of the year,” as well as a fine-press edition, Sad Is Eros (Aralia, 2003). He is the editor of The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets (2009), with a foreword by J. D. McClatchy. His libretto for a chamber opera by David Conte, Firebird Motel, was performed in San Francisco in 2003 and is available on CD from Arsis. A verse drama, On the Rocks, was produced at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York in 2007. A Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University from 1998 to 2000, his poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Anthology, and elsewhere. A former director of the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York, he is executive editor of The New Criterion. He is currently at work on a libretto of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon for composer Cyril Deaconoff (West Bay Opera), and an evening of verse monologues, with music by Chris Lee, titled Dirty Dan & Other Travesties.

Each Fall the WCU Poetry Center hosts a distinguished poet to work with West Chester University undergraduate and graduate students. Our guest also makes public presentations as part of West Chester University's mission to bring Chester County residents rich and diverse programming in the arts. The goal of the annual Poet-in-Residence program is to enrich the study of poetry at WCU, and encourage life-long readers of verse among students and Chester County residents. Please join us during the annual residency and experience the pleasures of poetry, one of the oldest and most fulfilling art forms

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