|
May 5, 2006
ANDOVER — Richard Wilbur, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and this year’s winner of the 2006 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, is coming to the Phillips Academy campus on Friday, May 12, where he will conduct a poetry reading at 7:00 p.m. Following the reading, he will participate in a question and answer period and sign copies of his books, the most recent of which is Richard Wilbur: Collected Poems 1943 – 2004.
The poetry reading and book signing will be held in Kemper Auditorium in the Elson Art Center on the Andover campus. The event is free and open to the public. No tickets required.
Prior to the evening event, Wilbur, who is visiting Andover on the Sandra Isham Vreeland Fund, will conduct a Master Class for creative writing students in the English department. Later in the evening, he will attend a faculty reception.
Born in New York City in 1921, Wilbur is considered one of the preeminent men of letters of our time. He is the only living American poet to have won the Pulitzer Prize twice and has the distinction of being the second Poet Laureate of the United States, earning that honor in 1987. He has also been the recipient of numerous other honors and awards, including a National Book Award, two PEN translation awards, the Bollingen Translation Prize, and two Guggenheim Fellowships.
Earlier this year, Wilbur was named the winner of the 2006 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Established in 1986, the prize is one of the most prestigious given to American poets, and at $100,000 it is one of the nation's largest literary honors. The prize will be presented at an evening ceremony at the Arts Club in Chicago on May 25.
In making the announcement about the Lilly prize, Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and chair of the selection committee, said, "If you had to put all your money on one living poet whose work will be read in a hundred years, Richard Wilbur would be a good bet. He has written some of the most memorable poems of our time, and his achievement rivals that of great American poets like Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop."
The Sandra Isham Vreeland Fund was established in 1997 by Sheila E. and Heyward Isham '44 in memory of their daughter Sandra Isham Vreeland '76. The fund promotes the teaching of poetry and encourages and facilitates the creative spark in students' poetic expression. |
