Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa to read from, speak about his work April 10

March 31, 2014

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa will read from and speak about his work on April 10, at 7 p.m. in the University of Richmond’s Keller Hall Reception Room. The event, which takes place during National Poetry Month, is free and open to the public, and a question-and-answer session and book signing will follow.

Komunyakaa’s poetry reflects various life experiences, including growing up as a black person in the pre-Civil Rights South and fighting in the Vietnam War. He released his first book of poetry in 1977 and has since published 14 more works, including “Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems,” for which he won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The Poetry Foundation awarded Komunyakaa the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2001, and his most recent book, “The Chameleon Couch,” was shortlisted for the international Griffin Poetry Prize in 2012.

The event is part of the university’s 2013–14 Writers Series, sponsored by the School of Arts and Sciences. The series’ mission is “to expose Richmond students, the greater university community and city residents to some of today’s most celebrated writers.”

For more information, contact Emily Tarchokov at etarchok@richmond.edu or 804-289-8287.

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