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Yale Literature & Spirituality Series
Brad Davis, poet
BOTH /AND
an annotated poetry reading
thursday, January 31, 2013 | 5:15 PM
marquand chapel
Readings in Marquand Chapel followed by a book-signing and reception
Presented in collaboration with Yale Divinity Student Book Supply.
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Download a hi-res image here.
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Drawing from his early poems, recent books, and new
work, Davis will trace a decades long struggle with being an artist
and a believer. Growing up, his "ur-poetry" included the biblical
psalms, liturgized weekly, nursery rhymes, and Dr. Seuss. These
sources (not equally pleasing), with song lyrics from the 1960s—The
Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, The Band, Laura Nyro,
Simon & Garfunkel, etc.—and a high school English teacher, opened him
to what words can do and nudged him toward making his own songs and
poems. Conversion in 1971 complicated what was his first and (to that
date) only, self-generated life goal: to write a good poem. And then a
better one. And eventually perhaps a great one. But suddenly the
question: how to serve God and the work of making poems? In 1977,
while holding a front desk job at a Virgin Islands resort, Davis had a
chance encounter with sculptor and hotel guest Isamu Noguchi. Noticing
that the sculptor carried a big book on art and religion, Davis
inquired whether he saw his work as purely art-for-art's-sake or
expressive of a religious vision. Noguchi replied, "You cannot
separate art and the Spirit." The evening's reading will trace one
artist's struggle to live and write into the wisdom of Noguchi's
reply.
Brad Davis has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and several
books, the most recent being Opening King David (Wipf & Stock) and
Self Portrait w/ Disposable Camera. His poems have appeared widely in
such journals as Poetry, Paris Review, DoubleTake, Connecticut Review,
Image, Michigan Quarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, The Cafe Review, Tar
River Poetry, Ascent, and Chautauqua. Awards include an AWP Intro
Journal Award and the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. Davis has taught
creative writing at the College of the Holy Cross and Eastern
Connecticut State University. As well, he served fifteen years as
chaplain of Pomfret School in Pomfret, CT, where he is now a school
counselor, poetry writing teacher, and squash coach. He is editor of
Hill-Stead Museum's online poetry journal, Theodate, and their 20th
anniversary festival anthology, Sunken Garden Poetry, 1992-2011
(Wesleyan University Press). |
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