Poet, performer, and librettist Douglas Kearney reads recent work, followed by a conversation with Dorothea Lasky, Associate Professor of Writing and Head of the Poetry Concentration.

“Where, oh where would we be without the dynamic intelligence and feats of lyric daring that Douglas Kearney’s work has delivered to American poetry?” –Tracy K. Smith

“I have never encountered poetry like this before.” –Terrance Hayes

About the Poet:

Douglas Kearney has published eight books ranging from poetry to essays. In 2023, Optic Subwoof, a collection of his Bagley Wright lectures, won the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Prize for Poetry Criticism and the CLMP Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. His seventh, Sho, (Wave Books) is a Griffin Poetry Prize and Minnesota Book Award winner. Kearney is a Whiting Writers and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly awardee with residencies/fellowships including Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and The McKnight Foundation. He is a Samuel Russell Chair in the Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of English at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.

The Max Ritvo Poetry Series is organized in memory of Max Ritvo ’16, author of Four Reincarnations and The Final Voicemails, and co-author of Letters from Max.

Books available for purchase by Book Culture.