Poet Mary Jo Bang, associate professor of English in Arts & Sciences, will read from her 2004 collection, The Eye Is Like a Strange Balloon, at 8 p.m. Dec. 2 for The Writing Program Reading Series.
The reading is free and open to the public and will take place in Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall, Room 201. A book-signing and reception will follow, and copies of Bang’s works will be available for purchase.
“Constantly challenging our human tendency toward easy narrative, Mary Jo Bang’s work generates provocative reconsiderations as to what narrative might be, and asks us — as poetry must — to see the world as if for the very first time,” said Carl Phillips, professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies, both in Arts & Sciences.
He added that The Eye Is Like a Strange Balloon “continues that project, pushing at the particular narrative tradition of painting, upending our assumptions — to dazzling effect.”
Bang’s first collection of poems, Apology for Want (1997), was awarded the Bakeless Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and was cited as one of the National Book Critics Circle’s Notable Books.
Her second book, The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of Swans (2001) won the University of Georgia’s Contemporary Poetry Series Competition, while her third collection, Louise in Love (2001), received an Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Bang’s poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Volt, Fence and Denver Quarterly, as well as in the Bread Loaf Anthology and Best American Poetry (2001 and 2004 editions).
Additional honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Discovery/The Nation award and, earlier this year, a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation.
Born in Waynesville, Mo., Bang grew up in St. Louis and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology from Northwestern University.
She also holds a bachelor’s in photography from the Polytechnic of Central London and a master’s in creative writing from Columbia University.
For more information, call 935-7130.