May 15th brings mayflowers and a pair of poets to the Ordinary Evening Reading Series, at 7PM in the Anchor Bar's Mermaid Room at 272 College Street in New Haven. Lloyd Schwarz, a poet, professor, music critic, and Elizabeth Bishop expert, will be reading with Elizabeth Alexander, Yale professor, poet, and recent winner of the inaugural Jackson Poetry Prize.
Lloyd Schwartz is the author of three books of poems, most recently Cairo Traffic. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism for his columns about classical music and dance in the Boston Phoenix and is also a regular commentator about classical music for NPR’s Fresh Air. He has written extensively about Elizabeth Bishop and is currently co-editing her collected works for the Library of America. Dr. Schwartz lives in Somerville, Massachusetts and is Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at The University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is the author of four books of poems, American Sublime (Graywolf Press, 2005), which was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize; The Venus Hottentot (Graywolf Press, reissued 2004); Antebellum Dream Book (Graywolf Press, 2001); and Body of Life (Tia Chucha, 1997). She is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior (Graywolf Press, 2003). She has read her work across the U.S. and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in dozens of periodicals and anthologies. A professor at Yale University , Dr. Alexander lives in New Haven, Connecticut and also serves on the faculty of Cave Canem Poetry Workshop in the summer.
