S145.

Second Acts

122AB, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 100 Level
Saturday, March 26, 2022
10:35 am to 11:50 am

 

Like the musician’s “sophomore album,” the poet’s “second act” navigates complex terrain. How much should a poet show aesthetic range? Does introducing a new project threaten the development of poetic voice? When should a poet look for a new publisher? This reading features five poets whose second books have been released in the past year—a trying year for any release, but especially so for early-career poets. These poets will also discuss the diverse paths that brought them to those books.



Outline & Supplemental Documents

Event Outline: AWP_Event_Outline_2022_Second_Acts_Reading.pdf

Participants

Moderator:

Corey Van Landingham is the author of Antidote and Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and she teaches in the MFA program at the University of Illinois.

Jacques J. Rancourt is the author of Brocken Spectre, Novena, and In the Time of PrEP. He has held fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Cité Internationale des Arts, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. 

Chet’la Sebree is the author of Field Study and Mistress. For her work, she has received fellowships and awards from the Academy of American Poets, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Yaddo. Currently, she directs the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts and teaches at Bucknell University.

Christopher Kempf is the author of the poetry collections Late in the Empire of Men  and What though the Field Be Lost, as well as the scholarly book Craft Class: The Workshop in American Culture (Johns Hopkins. A former Stegner Fellow, he teaches at Illinois.

Phillip B. Williams is the author of the poetry collections Mutiny and Thief in the Interior. A recipient of a Whiting Award, Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Lambda Literary Award, he currently teaches at Bennington College and Randolph College low-res MFA.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center