DETROIT, April 12, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- To commemorate its twenty-fifth year of bringing nationally-known authors to its campus for a public lecture and seminar, Marygrove's English and Modern Languages Department is pleased to announce that award-winning poet Terrance Hayes, will be the featured guest at its Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series (CAALS) event to be held on Friday, April 19, 2013 on the Marygrove College campus. Mr. Hayes will also host a master class for Detroit area high school students and teachers beginning at 10:30 a.m. in the Marygrove College Theatre.
Hayes's work is distinguished for the magnificence and precision of its language and sound. Poet Cornelius Eady proclaims, "First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world." John Freeman has noted, "Poetry has two kinds of music. There is the sound it makes when read aloud, and then it has an inner composition, too--that strange, occult rhythm that verses make when your mind, not your lips, mouths the words. Terrance Hayes is one of the rare poets who can braid these two sounds into a kind of harmony." Megan Simpson suggests, "In his explorations of what it means to be an artist, a Black artist, a Black male artist, and his inquiries into the various discourses--cultural, historical, personal--that partake in the construction of social categories and identities, Hayes is by turns brilliantly playful and profoundly serious."
This year's celebration will begin with a special art exhibition featuring Michigan artists who will explore the themes of the nationally-renowned authors who presented public lectures at CAALS over the past 25 years. The exhibit is now in the Beyond Words Gallery at Marygrove College and runs until May 17, 2013.
CAALS will also celebrate this year's event by featuring a master class conducted by Terrance Hayes for Detroit area high school students. Over 300 students and teachers from Fordson, Cass Technical, Cody, Ferndale, Martin Luther King, Loyola, East English Village, and Detroit International Academy for Young Women will attend the class which begins at 10:30 a.m. in the Marygrove Theatre. Winners of the Mary Helen Washington Writing Contest will be recognized as well. Afterwards, students will enjoy lunch and a tour of the Marygrove College campus.
Terrance Hayes will deliver the Lillian and Don Bauder Lecture at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 19, 2013, in Alumnae Hall on the Marygrove College campus.
Afterward, he will sign copies of his books, which will be available for purchase.
The evening lecture is free and open to the community.
Sponsors for the 2013 CAALS include: The National Endowment for the Arts, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA)/City of Detroit Recreation Department and the Skillman Foundation.
For more information or to schedule an interview with Mr. Hayes, contact Karen Cameron at (313) 316-6456 or kcameron@marygrove.edu. You may also visit: http://english.marygrove.edu/caals/author-archive/item/terrance-hayes.html.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terrance Hayes is Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of four collections of poetry: Muscular Music (1999), Hip Logic (2002), Wind in a Box (2006), and Lighthead (2010). His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Poetry, African American Review, and Kenyon Review. He has received numerous awards and honors, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the National Poetry Series Open Competition, three Best American Poetry selections, a Pushcart Prize, and the National Book Award. He holds a bachelor's degree in English from Coker College and a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh. A native of South Carolina, he now lives in Pittsburgh.
ABOUT THE SERIES
This series, now in its twenty-fifth year at Marygrove, is an annual event bringing a nationally-known author to its campus for a public lecture and seminar with students.
It began when the late Frederick P. Currier, a former Marygrove College trustee, attended a reception on campus and remarked that he would like to bring a national writer to Marygrove for a weekend. Mr. Currier's start-up check soon followed his suggestion, and on April 21, 1989 nearly 600 guests of the College heard Gloria Naylor inaugurate the series.
The series has flourished thanks in large part to the generosity of Lillian and Don Bauder whose endowment supports the evening lecture as well as the Mary Helen Washington Writing Contest in which local high school students respond in writing to the visiting authors' works.
To date, nearly 10,000 people have joined Marygrove at the Friday night public readings to hear outstanding writers share their work.
ABOUT MARYGROVE COLLEGE
Founded by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) in 1905, Marygrove College is an independent liberal arts college and a Catholic institution of higher learning. The College's commitment to the city of Detroit comprises an institutional mission and vision for developing urban leaders. The main campus is situated on 53 wooded acres in northwest Detroit.
8425 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, MI 48221
Web site: www.marygrove.edu