. Komunyakaa, whose poetry explores his experiences during the Vietnam War as well as Civil Rights and other social issues, will read from his work at 8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 28 in Kenan Auditorium. Writers' Week, which takes place Feb. 25-29, brings together visiting writers of local and national interest, UNCW students and members of the general public with an interest in literature and writing. Activities throughout the week will include workshops, panels, readings and manuscript conferences.
Keynote guest Yusef Komunyakaa was born in 1947 in Bogalusa, La., where he was raised during the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. He served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1970 as a correspondent and managing editor of the Southern Cross during the Vietnam War, and received a Bronze Star. He began writing poetry in 1973. His first book of poems, Dedications & Other Darkhorses, was published in 1977, followed by Lost in the Bonewheel Factory in 1979.
Komunyakaa first received wide recognition following the 1984 publication of Copacetic, a collection of poems built from colloquial speech, which demonstrated his incorporation of jazz influences. He followed the book with two others: I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), winner of the San Francisco Poetry Center Award; and Dien Cai Dau (1988), which won The Dark Room Poetry Prize and has been cited by poets such as William Matthews and Robert Hass as being among the best writing on the war in Vietnam.
Since then, he has published several more books of poems, including Thieves of Paradise (1998), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems 1977-1989 (1994), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.
Komunyakaa's honors include the William Faulkner Prize from the Université de Rennes, the Thomas Forcade Award, the Hanes Poetry Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Louisiana Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
2008 Visiting Writers
Other visiting writers, editors and agents for the 2008 Writers' Workshop include Josh Bell, Carolyn Ferrell, Scott Huler, John Lane, Louis Rubin, Louise Shivers, Peter Steinberg, Sharan Strange and Betsy Teter. Biographies of these guests and descriptions of their work, as well as a detailed schedule of Writers' Week events, are available on the Department of Creative Writing Web site, www.uncw.edu/writers/events-writers.html .
All events are free and open to the public. Ticket reservations are required for Yusef Komunyakaa's reading and can be reserved by calling the Kenan Auditorium box office at 910.962.3500. Receptions sponsored by the department and book signings sponsored by Pomegranate Books will follow all readings.
Other upcoming events:
Visiting Professor Elizabeth Kostova to read on Thurs., April 10, 7 p.m., Kenan Lecture Hall (Kenan 1111)
For further information on UNCW's programs and events in creative writing, please contact the Department of Creative Writing at 910.962.7063.
