Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

National Book Critics Circle Award winner B.H. Fairchild speaks at Syracuse Symposium Nov. 14

Thursday, November 1, 2012, By Rob Enslin
Share
College of Arts and SciencesEventsspeakersSyracuse Symposium

fairchildSyracuse Symposium continues its fall theme of “Memory-Media-Archive” with a special reading by poet B. H. Fairchild. Winner of the prestigious National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award, Fairchild will speak at the Downtown Syracuse YMCA (340 Montgomery St.) on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. For more information, call 315-443-7192 or visit syracusehumanities.org. 

Fairchild’s reading is sponsored by the Downtown Writer’s Center (DWC) of the Arts Branch of the YMCA of Greater Syracuse and by the SU Humanities Center, which organizes and presents Syracuse Symposium for The College of Arts and Sciences and campus community.

“We are proud to partner with the Downtown Writer’s Center to present B.H. Fairchild, known for his moving portrayals of working-class Midwestern communities,” says Gregg Lambert, Dean’s Professor of the Humanities and founding director of the SU Humanities Center. “His poems provide powerful insight into an America that is often overlooked in our modern storytelling.”

Phil Memmer, DWC founder and executive director of the Y Arts Branch, agrees: “Whether it captures a single fleeting moment or a generation’s Zeitgeist, Fairchild’s work preserves how it feels to be human.”

Fairchild is the author of six volumes of poetry, including “Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest” (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002), winner of the NBCC Award, the California Book Award and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry; and “The Art of the Lathe” (Alice James Books, 1997), winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. Fairchild also won Pushcart prizes in 2009 and 2012.

The son of a lathe operator, Fairchild has written extensively about the desolate beauty of his native Kansas and Texas. Much of his work lies at the intersection of physical labor and memory, as explained in an interview with Boston College professor Paul Mariani: “Very often, especially in my later teens and early 20s, I was existing in both worlds at the same time, watching a welder lay down a perfect seam while ‘Madame Bovary’ was walking around in my head, or observing the gleam of a freshly shaped and honed piece of stock while remembering the arc of a Brancusi sculpture.”

Fairchild, whose American aesthetic has been compared to William Carlos Williams’, James Wright’s and James Dickey’s, is a professor of English at the University of North Texas.

 

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • Lender Center New York Event Gathers Wealth Gap Experts
    Wednesday, July 30, 2025, By Diane Stirling
  • After Tragedy, Newhouse Grad Rediscovers Her Voice Through Podcasting
    Wednesday, July 30, 2025, By Chris Velardi
  • Back-to-School Shopping: More Expensive and Less Variety of Back-to-School Items
    Tuesday, July 29, 2025, By Daryl Lovell
  • How New Words Enter Our Language: A Linguistics Expert Explains
    Friday, July 25, 2025, By Jen Plummer
  • Impact Players: Sport Analytics Students Help Influence UFL Rules and Strategy
    Friday, July 25, 2025, By Matt Michael

More In Arts & Culture

How New Words Enter Our Language: A Linguistics Expert Explains

From “yeet” to “social distancing,” new words and phrases constantly emerge and evolve in American English. But how do these neologisms—newly coined terms—gain acceptance and become part of mainstream dialect? We interviewed Christopher Green, associate professor of linguistics in the…

Art Museum Acquires Indian Scrolls Gifted by SUNY Professor

The University Art Museum has received a monumental gift of more than 80 traditional Indian patachitra scrolls, significantly expanding its collection of South Asian art and material culture. The scrolls were donated by Geraldine Forbes, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita at…

Architecture Students’ Project Selected for Royal Academy Exhibition

In a prestigious international honor, a project by three students from the School of Architecture has been selected for inclusion in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2025, currently on view in London. The work, titled “Evolving an Urban Ecology,” was…

Vintage Over Digital: Alumnus Dan Cohen’s Voyager CD Bag Merges Music and Fashion

Bucking the trend of streaming music platforms and contrary to what one might expect of a member of his generation, musician Dan Cohen ’25 prefers listening to his favorite artists on compact disc (CD) and record players. His research and…

VPA Announces New Drama Department Chair

The College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) has appointed Eleanor Holdridge as the new chair of the Department of Drama effective July 1. Holdridge comes to Syracuse University from the Catholic University of America, where she served as professor…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.