Syracuse’s Sarah Harwell is Next Guest of Raymond Carver Reading Series

The Spring 2013 Raymond Carver Reading Series continues with award-winning poet Sarah C. Harwell G’00, G’05 at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 20, in Gifford Auditorium. The reading will be preceded by a question and answer session from 3:45-4:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU’s paid lots.

“Sit Down Traveler” (Antilever Press, 2012) is Harwell’s first solo collection of poetry. According to the publisher, “the telephone psychic with her tarot deck fanned out before her: so does Harwell embrace the poet’s dual role of seeker and oracle … Harwell’s language is often blunt, often playfully oblique, as she looks askance at metaphors and studies how we star, fade and reappear in our own stories.” She also published, with Farah Marklevits and Courtney Queeney, “Three New Poets” (2006).

Born in Nashville, Harwell is a graduate of the creative writing program in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences. She also holds a master’s degree in library science from SU’s School of Information Studies and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto. In her poems, Harwell explores loss, intimacy and mortality, often through the joys and dramas of motherhood and domestic rituals.

In an interview with Sapling, Harwell discussed finding the balance between writing, work and family. “Writing gets done in the cracks and crevices, stealing time from one obligation to give to another. Life is messy, which is good, for otherwise there would be no need of poems,” she said.

Harwell received the Joyce Carol Oates Prize in Poetry and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. She is the associate director of SU’s creative writing program and teaches poetry.

Spring 2013 Series Schedule
The series will continue with the following authors. All readings begin at 5:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium. Question-and-answer sessions are from 3:45-4:30 p.m. Further information is available by calling 315-443-2174.

April 3: Dean Young, author of “Bender, New and Selected Poems” (Canyon Press, 2012), named “Best of 2012” by the Los Angeles Times

April 24: Diane Williams, award-winning short-story teller and author of seven works of fiction, including “Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty” (McSweeney’s, 2012).