October 19, 2015
Marie Howe, Acclaimed Poet, Lectures at Lewis Center for the Arts
“The Poem as an Experience” is the topic for the
2015-2016 Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes Lecture at Princeton
Photo Caption: Acclaimed poet Marie Howe will present a lecture at Princeton University on
October 27
Photo Credit: Brad Fowler
What: A lecture entitled “No Not Nothing Never: Interruption, Contradiction and Negation as a
Way To Push Open the Door You Didn’t Know Was There,” the 2015 Theodore H. Holmes ’51
and Bernice Holmes Lecture at Princeton University
Who: Marie Howe, acclaimed poet, presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in
Creative Writing
When: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 4:30 p.m.
Where: James M. Stewart ’32 Theater at 185 Nassau St., Princeton
Free and open to the public
(Princeton, NJ) Acclaimed poet Marie Howe will present a lecture entitled “No Not Nothing
Never: Interruption, Contradiction and Negation as a Way To Push Open the Door You Didn’t
Know Was There” on Tuesday, October 27, at 4:30 p.m. at the Lewis Center for the Arts’ James
M. Stewart ’32 Theater at 185 Nassau Street. This 2015-2016 Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and
Bernice Holmes Lecture presented by Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing, is free and open
to the public.
Marie Howe is the 2012-2014 Poet Laureate of New York State and an award-winning author of
three volumes of poetry. Her most recent book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2009) was a
finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her other collections of poetry include What the
Living Do (1998), which was praised by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the five best poetry
collections of the year, and The Good Thief (Persea, 1988), which was selected by Margaret
Atwood for the 1987 National Poetry Series. She was also awarded the 2015 Academy of
American Poets Fellowship. Her other awards include grants from the John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation, the Bunting Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Howe has taught
writing at Tufts University and Dartmouth College and is currently teaching at Sarah Lawrence
College, New York University, and Columbia University.
Howe’s lecture will examine the relationship between experience and poetry. She will speak
about the poem as an experience in itself, instead of simply a record of an experience.
On the intersection of poetry and the experiences of everyday life, Howe noted on poets.org,
“This might be the most difficult task for us in postmodern life: not to look away from what is
actually happening. To put down the iPod and the e-mail and the phone. To look long enough so
that we can look through it—like a window.”
The annual lecture is named for Theodore Holmes, a Class of 1951 biology major and graduate
of Princeton who became a poet, and his sister Bernice.
To learn more about the Program in Creative Writing and the more than 100 events offered
annually by the Lewis Center visit arts.princeton.edu.
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