RICHARD TILLINGHAST’s new book of poems is “Night Train to Memphis.” Roger Rosenblatt says, “Characteristic of Richard Tillinghast’s genius, “Night Train to Memphis” gives us comfort with a beautiful strangeness. ‘Imagine what you know,’ said Shelley. Richard does just that. He welcomes us to a poem, treats us like kin, then quietly changes our lives for the better.” He has published fourteen previous collections, the most recent “Blue If Only I Could Tell You,” and five works of creative nonfiction including literary travel books on Istanbul, Ireland, and a critical biography of the poet Robert Lowell. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. Recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in Hawaii and spends his summers in Tennessee.
JEANNE FOSTER has published four books of poetry, most recently “Your Form Became My Own.” Rodney Jones says, her “gift is to witness again and again the timeless in a single glimpse.” She is a translator from Italian, and co-translated with Alan Williamson, “The Living Theatre: Selected Poems of Bianca Tarozzi,” Northern California Book Award-winner for Poetry in Translation. “Ascoltando una conchiglia,” her selected poems translated into Italian, will be published in Venice this fall. Jeanne Foster is the recipient of the QRL Poetry Award and grants from MacDowell, New York State CAPS, Saint Lawrence, and Lannan Foundation. She is Professor Emerita at Saint Mary’s College of California, and is a Unitarian Universalist minister who has spoken in pulpits as wide-ranging as London, New Orleans, and San Francisco.
ALAN WILLIAMSON is author, most recently, of the poetry collection “Franciscan Notes”; Kevin McIlvoy says, “It is impossible to leave “Franciscan Notes” without experiencing the inmost smile that is the response of the body and mind to intimate, authentic truth-telling. Each poem embodies processes of reckoning with the intricacies of mythmaking and unmasking in the ‘lifework’ of loving. Invoking the Franciscan spiritual practice of discernment through the ‘trinity’ of memory, intelligence, and love, Williamson unlocks in the reader expectations of sudden joy.” Williamson’s previous books include “The Pattern More Complicated: New and Selected Poems,” “Love and the Soul,” and “Res Publica.” His most recent book of literary criticism is “Dante and the Night Journey.” He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UC Davis, he teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.
Also check out other Arts events in Berkeley, Literary Art events in Berkeley, Theatre events in Berkeley.
