2008-09 Poetry Series

Presenting Sponsor: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bookstore Sponsor: Open Books: A Poem Emporium

Two Poetry Special Events

W.S. Merwin - Friday, November 7, 2008; 7:30pm
Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, Benaroya Hall
Underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts

A student of R.P. Blackmur and John Berryman. A tutor for Robert Graves' children. Selected by W.H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Friends with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Pulitzer and Lilly Prize, as well as Lannan Lifetime Achievement and National Book Award winner. Translator. Buddhist. Environmentalist. Join us as we kick off the 2008-09 Poetry Season with living legend, W.S. Merwin.

Gary Snyder - Wednesday, May 27, 2009; 7:30pm
S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, Benaroya Hall
Co-presented by North Cascades Institute

Pacific Northwesterner and early member of the Beat movement, Snyder is a poet/essayist of history, wilderness, and wild mind; a meditator on memory. He is also noted for his environmental activism and contributions to Buddhist theory and practice. Snyder was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Turtle Island in 1975 and is the 2008 Lilly Poetry Prize winner.

Five Poetry Series Readings

Donald Hall - Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Jane Hirshfield - Thursday, March 12, 2009
Yusef Komunyakaa - Thursday, March 26, 2009
Simon Armitage - Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Naomi Shihab Nye - Thursday, May 7, 2009

All Poetry Series events begin at 7:30pm in the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall. Click here for directions.
*Please note the Gary Snyder event will be in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium at Benaroya Hall

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Media Sponsors: Seattle Magazine, KUOW 94.9 FM Puget Sound Public Radio, and The Stranger, with support from KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio

Additional support provided by: Paul G. Allen Family Foundation; The Boeing Company; and the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, City of Seattle

Hotel Sponsor: W Seattle

Donald Hall
One of the major poets of his generation and former Poet Laureate, Donald Hall is the author of numerous books of poetry, including, most recently, White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006, The Painted Bed, and Without: Poems, which was published on the third anniversary of his wife and fellow poet Jane Kenyon's death.

Jane Hirshfield
Award-winning poet and translator, Jane Hirshfield is the author of several collections of verse, many of which are influenced by her Zen Buddhist practice and her knowledge of classical Japanese verse. Her work includes the recent collections After and Given Sugar, Given Salt, as well as Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, a collection of prose pieces.

Yusef Komunyakaa
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa was born in 1947 in Bogalusa, Louisiana. A Vietnam-era vet, his work is considered some of the best writing on that war. He is the editor of The Jazz Poetry Anthology (1991) and his most recent collections of poetry include Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part 1 (2004) and Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems, 1975-1999 (2001).

Simon Armitage
British poet Simon Armitage is the author of nine volumes of poetry, most recently Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid (2006), four stage plays, and numerous radio, TV, and film pieces. He has received the Sunday Times Author of the Year Prizes and a Lannan Award. His translation of the classic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight prompted The Guardian to declare that Armitage was "put on the planet to translate this poem."

Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye's mixed heritage--her father is Palestinian, her mother is American--shapes the subjects of her poetry. She is the author of numerous books of poems, including You and Yours and Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East. She is also the editor of numerous anthologies for children. Nye has traveled extensively, including to the Middle East and Asia to promote goodwill through the arts.

Established in 2000, SAL’s annual Poetry Series has become one of Seattle’s most important and highly anticipated literary programs. Poetry is an essential literary form, but poets often receive less attention than prose writers. In creating the series, SAL recognized that, as a literary organization, it had a responsibility to ensure that this great art form thrived in our community.

For information about poets who have appeared in the Poetry Series, please visit our author archive.