Writers@Grinnell: Mary Syzbist

Celebrated poet Mary Szybist will read from her latest book, Incarnadine, a 2013 National Book Award for Poetry, during the Writers@Grinnell creative writing series.

Szybist will give a presentation at 4:15 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9 at Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Sebring-Lewis Hall.  The event is free and open to the public.

“As we strive to bring a dynamic and diverse group of writers to campus, partnerships with our alumni, our donors, and other institutions in Iowa insure that our nation's most celebrated poets and writers visit the Grinnell College community,” says Dean Bakopoulos, assistant professor of English.

The Pennsylvania native is an associate English professor at Lewis & Clark College. She is a 2014 Guggenheim fellow. She was a fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

According to judge Kay Ryan, Syzbist’s “lovely musical touch is light and exact enough to catch the weight and grind of love. This is a hard paradox to master as she does,” in Incarnadine.

Future events this year will feature Iowa Writers Workshop professor T. Geronimo Johnson, playwright Dan O'Brien, winner of this year's Horton Foote Prize, and Alison Bechdel, who has just received a MacArthur Foundation Grant, commonly referred to as a “genius award.”