Corey Zeller
Poet Corey Zeller is the next writer in the spring 2014 Raymond Carver Reading Series at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12, in Gifford Auditorium. A question-and-answer session will precede the reading from 3:45-4:30 p.m.
The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU’s paid lots.
Zeller’s 2013 book “Man vs. Sky” (YesYes Books) is a collection of prose poems that addresses the question “What happens to us when we die?” Based on the 2012 suicide of Zeller’s best friend, the work succeeds in expressing “a grief theme like a great jazz piece,” said a review in Devil’s Lake, a literary journal published at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The poems have “an electric urgency” in their effort to “describe a corporeal existence in which the body has ceased to exist … the topic is grim, but never plunges into total darkness.”
Zeller is the author of “You and Other Pieces” (Civil Coping Mechanisms, forthcoming 2015). His work has appeared in outlets that include Puerto del Sol, Mid-American Review, Indiana Review, the Colorado Review, the Kenyon Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Diagram, Salt Hill, West Branch, Third Coast, the Literary Review, the Paris-American, New York Tyrant, New Orleans Review, Green Mountains Review, the AWL and the Rumpus.
He has worked as an associate editor at the now-defunct Mud Luscious Press and for an online literary site. He currently works in crisis support at a facility for children and adolescents with mental and behavioral issues.
During an April 16, 2013, reading showcasing “Man vs. Sky,” Zeller urged his audience to write about their own losses. “It’s not going to bring you closer to the person you lost and it’s not going to bring them back,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be in a book. You don’t have to get it published in a journal. Just write something. That’s all that matters.”
SU’s reading series is named for Raymond Carver, the great short story writer and poet who taught at SU in the 1980s and died in 1988, and is presented by the Creative Writing Program in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
The series will continue with the following authors. Further information is available by calling 315-443-2174.
March 19: Rachel Kushner’s second novel, “The Flamethrowers” (Scribner, 2013) was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award and was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her debut novel, “Telex from Cuba” (Scribner 2008), was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow.
March 27: Jim Shepard is the author of six novels, including “Project X” (Knopf, 2004) and four story collections, including “You Think That’s Bad” (Knopf, 2011) and “Like You’d Understand, Anyway” (Knopf, 2007). His short stories have appeared in outlets including Harper’s, McSweeney’s, the Paris Review, the Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, DoubleTake, the New Yorker and Granta. He teaches at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.
Shepard will visit campus as the Richard Elman Visiting Writer. The Richard Elman Visiting Writer is supported by a gift from Leonard Elman in honor of his late brother Richard. In addition to the Raymond Carver event, Shepard will conduct a seminar for M.F.A. students and critique their work.
April 16: Brooks Haxton G’81 is the author of eight books of original poems and translations from the French and ancient Greek. His books include “They Lift Their Wings to Cry” (Knopf, 2008) and “Uproar: Antiphonies to Psalms” (Knopf, 2004). He is translator for “Selected Poems” by Victor Hugo (Penguin Classics, 2002). His forthcoming book, “Fading Hearts on the River” (Counterpoint, May 13, 2014), follows his son Isaac’s unlikely career as a poker player. Haxton teaches English in The College of Arts and Sciences.
April 23: Ellen Bryant Voigt is the author of several poetry collections, including “Headwaters: Poems” (Norton, 2013), “Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006” (Norton, 2007) and “Shadow of Heaven” (Norton, 2002). Voigt served as the Vermont State Poet from 1999 to 2003.
