Release date: April 30, 2007
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Pulitzer Winner Trethewey to Give Public Reading

Natasha Trethewey, associate professor of English/creative writing at Emory and winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, will give a public reading at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, May 8 at Goizueta Business School auditorium (Room 130). A reception and book signing will follow. The free event is sponsored by Emory's Program in Creative Writing, the Department of English, Emory College and the university.

Trethewey will read from her Pulitzer Prize-winning third collection, "Native Guard," in which national experience--some of the "forgotten" history of the Civil War--intersects with the poet's personal experience as a native of Mississippi. As Dave Madden has written, Trethewey "serves our profound need for that rare thing--artistically fine Civil War poetry that expresses ways the war and Reconstruction affect all Americans to this very day. She is our Native Guard."

Trethewey's first poetry collection, "Domestic Work," won the inaugural 1999 Cave Canen poetry prize, selected by an earlier Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry, Rita Dove. Her second collection, "Bellocq's Ophelia," received the 2003 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Prize, and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association.

"Native Guard" was published in 2006. Trethewey's work has appeared in the nation's top literary magazines, and she has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bunting Fellowship Program, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

She has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Georgia, a master's in English and creative writing from Hollins University, and an MFA degree in poetry from the University of Massachusetts. She taught at Auburn before joining the Emory faculty.

The evening will be a celebration of the poet, her work and her presence in the Emory community, said Lynna Williams, director of the creative writing program.

Related Information

Emory Poet Trethewey Wins 2007 Pulitzer Prize

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