<< Front page Arts March 12, 2004

FAVA brings writers from near and far

Boston poets and Obie professor to read at FAVA

Two Boston-based poets are headed to Oberlin’s FAVA gallery, joining an Oberlin classics professor in a free reading that marks the latest installment of the FAVA gallery’s Main Street Reading Series.

Poets David Daniel and Scott Withiam will both stroll into Oberlin while on tour promoting their first books.

Seven-Star Bird, Daniel’s book, was published by Graywolf Press in October 2003. The book of poems tells the tale of Friendship, Texas, a town sacrificed in the 1960s to the flooding of a new dam.

Reviewing Seven-Star Bird, critic Carl Phillips wrote that by “Fusing history, folk wisdom, ancient religious thought and a decidedly contemporary sense of the ironic… Daniel nimbly clocks and captures for us ‘the terrible speed of beauty born and passing.”

Scott Withiam’s Arson and Prophets, published fall 2003 by Ashland Poetry Press, has also received high praise.

“Flints, strangely beautiful and resonant long after reading it through, this is an impressive collection that makes me sit up and take notice,” reviewer Mark Cox wrote.

To cap off the reading, Oberlin Professor of Classics Tom Van Nortwick will read non-fiction. A colleague added, “He combines traditional literary criticism with personal essay in a way that’s really interesting and ground-breaking.”

The free reading will take place in the FAVA gallery at 39 S. Main St. on Sunday, March 21 at 8 p.m. A reception and signing courtesy of Mindfair Books will follow.


 
 
   

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