Stadler Center Writers Series

Terrance Hayes
2012–13 Poet-in-Residence


Poetry Reading
February 5, 2013
7 p.m. Bucknell Hall

Conversation and Q&A
February 12, 2013
4 p.m. Willard Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

 

Terrance Hayes is the author of four books of poetry; Lighthead (2010), winner of the 2010 National Book Award in Poetry; Wind in a Box, winner of a Pushcart Prize; Hip Logic, winner of the National Poetry Series, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and runner-up for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Muscular Music, winner of both the Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He has been a recipient of many other honors and awards, including two Pushcart selections, four Best American Poetry selections, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His poetry appears widely in magazines and periodicals and has been featured on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. A Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University, Hayes lives in Pittsburgh with his wife and children.

Poetry Workshop with Terrance Hayes


During his two-week stay as Poet-in-Residence, Hayes will offer a poetry workshop for qualified Bucknell students. The workshop, which is not for academic credit, is open to undergraduate and graduate students on an application basis. The workshop is limited to twelve students.

If you are interested in applying for the workshop, please email Stadler Center Director Shara McCallum with an explanation of why you would like to participate and a 5-10 page sample of your poetry (attached as a single Word doc or PDF). The application deadline is Friday, December 7.

The workshop will meet twice:

Wednesday, February 6 (7-10 p.m.)
Wednesday, February 13 (7-10 p.m.)

Please note that the writing sample you send will be used as workshop course materials. Copies of each student's poems will be circulated to all members of the workshop.

 

 

 

Terrance Hayes

God Is an American

 

I still love words. When we make love in the morning,
your skin damp from a shower, the day calms.
Schadenfreude may be the best way to name the covering
of adulthood, the powdered sugar on a black shirt. I am

alone now on the top floor pulled by obsession, the ink
on my fingers. Sometimes what I feel has a difficult name.
Sometimes it is like the world before America, the kin-
ship of God's fools and guardians, of hooligans; the dreams

of mothers with no children. A word can be the boot print
in a square of fresh cement and the glaze of morning.
Your response to my kiss is, I have a cavity. I am in
love with incompletion. I am clinging to your moorings.

Yes, I have a pretty good idea of what beauty is. It survives
all right. It aches like an open book. It makes is difficult to live.




from Lighthead