Acclaimed poet Phillis Levin will read from her new book, An Anthology of Rain, the sixth of her published collections, on April 26, 5–7 PM at The Cornwall Library. A book signing follows; admission is free, and refreshments with be served.

Registration is required on the library website given below.

Phillis Levin’s work recently inspired the following salute from Pulitzer Prize winning American poet and essayist Vijay Seshadri:

“Phillis Levin’s poetry has been characterized over the past thirty years by an astonishingly consistent excellence. She has written…poems that are precise, feeling-full and piercing, elegant, informed and aware of the world, and rich in the kind of profound play that is a hallmark of real art.”

Perhaps Seshardi was thinking of lines like the following when he wrote that tribute:

There is a needle in the sky
Being threaded now, but the thread is blue:
That is why you cannot see it
Threading its way. When all is said and done
It will keep sewing…

From “A Needle in the Sky”, by Phillis Levin

Note that Ms. Levin will also give a poetry workshop, open to writers and readers, at the library on the following day, Sunday April 27. Registration on the library website is required and limited.

Levin’s poems have appeared in well-known publications such as The Atlantic, Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Plume, and The Yale Review.

A Guggenheim Fellow, Levin’s many honors include a Fulbright Scholar Award and fellowships from the Trust of Amy Lowell and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, Levin taught creative writing at The University of Maryland, NYU, and the 92nd Street Y. She is now Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English emerita at Hofstra.

She lives with her husband in New York City and West Cornwall, Connecticut.

The Cornwall Library
30 Pine Street
Cornwall, CT 06753
https://cornwalllibrary.org/events/