The Annual Maurice Brown Poetry Reading is proud to host Albert Goldbarth, one of America's most critically acclaimed poets.   He will be reading selections from his poetry in the Gold Rooms in the Oakland Center on Wednesday, October 22, 2008, at 4 p.m. The reading is open to the public. Admission is free. Refreshments will be served.

Mr. Goldbarth received his B.A. from the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle campus, in 1969 and his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in 1971. He is currently the Adele M. Davis Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wichita State University. Early in his career, Mr. Goldbarth won the Poetry Northwest Theodore Roethke Prize, and since then he has published more than twenty-five collections of poetry. including Saving Lives (2001) and Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology (1991), both of which won the National Book Critics Circle award for poetry. Goldbarth is the only poet to have received this award twice. Last year saw the publication of a large collection: The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems 1972-2007 (Graywolf Press).

Goldbarth is known for his conversational, "talky" style and his eclectic tastes. A self-confessed "hoarder" of everything from 1950's outer space toys to old manual typewriters, he is a playful writer with a capacious and discerning intellect. There is always room in his poetry to include the utterly human and the cosmic divine.

This reading is sponsored by the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences, with additional support from the Department of Art and Art History, as a tribute to Professor Maurice Brown, who taught in Oakland University’s English Department from 1961 until his death in 1985. The Maurice Brown Collection of Contemporary Poetry in Kresge Library also honors his memory.

For more information, contact the Department of English, (248) 370-2250, www2.oakland.edu/english

Added event: October 9th, 4 to 5 p.m. in the OU Art Gallery, "Reading Albert Goldbarth, a Preview of Goldbarth's poetry." English Department faculty and students will be reading selected poems by Goldbarth. Free and open to the public.

Books at Kresge Library [and "on order"] by Albert Goldbarth

(includes Adventures in Ancient Egypt, Gods, Marriage and Other Science Fiction, Original Light--with several other titles "on order")

Free Web Resources

More information about Albert Goldbarth on the Academy of American Poets web site plus links to 4 poems :

• 27,000 Miles
• Lullabye
• Shawl
• The Sciences Sing a Lullabye
• Units

Other poems:

• Library
• Dial "H" for Hero

Other Online Resources (freely available "on campus" to everyone, "remote access" limited to OU faculty, staff, and students)

Biographical Information on Albert Goldbarth from Contemporary Authors Online

Gehrke, Steve. "An Interview with Albert Goldbarth." Missouri Review, 27.1 (2004), 63-8.

Click here for links to several other poems by Albert Goldbarth (including "In Another," "The Weather Report," "Channeling the Lord," "To Be Read in 500 Years," etc.

Past Maurice Brown Poetry Reading Poets