Pulitzers in Person
Pulitzers in Person will bring Pulitzer Prize-winning and -nominated poets together for three live conversations about reading and writing poetry. The central question addressed will be “What makes a poem, or a poetry collection, ‘extraordinary?”
Humanities Washington and Copper Canyon Press are excited to present “Pulitzers in Person,” a Washington State-wide program to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Prizes in 2016 through Pulitzer’s Campfires Initiative.
Consisting of three live events, “Pulitzers in Person” will bring Pulitzer Prize-winning and -nominated poets together for conversations about reading and writing poetry. The central question addressed will be: What makes a poem, or a poetry collection, “extraordinary?”
The events will be held in Seattle, and streamed live online. To take the discussion beyond the walls of the event space, Copper Canyon Press will be creating discussion guides and providing reduced-cost books for distribution among book clubs and writing circles. Further, poets and scholars featured in the materials will be available for visiting select groups.
The events will be held in the fall of 2016, with a lineup of award-winning Copper Canyon poets reading and discussing Ted Kooser’s Pulitzer-winning collection Delights and Shadows; Lucille Clifton’s Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; Jean Valentine’s Breaking the Glass, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, W.S. Merwin’s Pulitzer-winning Shadow of Sirius, Carolyn Kizer’s Pulitzer-winning Yin: New Poems, Theodore Roethke’s Pulitzer-winning The Waking, and Arthur Sze’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist Compass Rose. Additionally, Pulitzer finalist Forrest Gander’s translation of Pablo Neruda’s lost poems and the most recent works of W.S. Merwin will be presented.