An evening w/ Tyehimba Jess

This event is also made possible by the following cosponsors: the Campus Committee on Inclusive Excellence; the Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action; Collegiate Seminar; the Communications Department; the English Department; and the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts

The evening will include an introduction by Matthew Zapruder and a reading and preformance from Tyehimba Jess, followed by a Q/A with Jess and Zapruder. Matthew Zapruder is Associate Professor of English and Poetry Faculty in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Saint Mary’s. He serves as Editor-at-Large for Wave Books, the publisher of Jess’ 2017 Pulitzer Prize poetry collection, Olio.

Tyehimba Jess is the author of leadbelly and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Olio. Jess’s Olio, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the 2017 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the 2017 Book Award for Poetry from the Society of Midland Authors. It was also a finalist for the 2016 National Books Critics Circle Award, 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Library Journal called it a “daring collection, which blends forthright, musically acute language with portraiture” and Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called it “Encyclopedic, ingenious, and abundant” and selected it as one of the five best poetry books of 2016. Jess is the Poetry and Fiction Editor of the African American Review and is an Associate Professor of English at College of Staten Island.