<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><img apple-inline="yes" id="FDBEC2E4-D3C5-493B-9B7C-4E32E267AD09" height="332" width="317" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:020B6877-F16B-4526-99BC-D18543163B8A@att.net" class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div>Dear Friends,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Just a reminder that we will be meeting tomorrow, Friday Oct. 30th, from 3 PM - 5 PM, for our first of two discussions devoted to Carl Phillips and his latest collection of poems, <i class="">Reconnaissance. </i>We will meet in room B04 of the Whitney Humanities Center. It turns out that, at the last minute, we have uncovered two extra copies of the book and these can be found on the shelf in Room 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center. Phillips will join us at our session next week to continue our discussion of his work. Our own Liz Gray alerts us to a new review of this book: </div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" applecontenteditable="true" style="line-height: 14px !important;"><br class=""></span><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareSharedContentClass" applecontenteditable="true" style="position: relative !important;"><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__therumpus.net_2015_10_reconnaissance-2Dby-2Dcarl-2Dphillips_&d=AwMFAg&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=uPcxbC5RWRHP-E9rQcYDr0Eibn5c8dmgro-HeBHQOO8&m=5m8L_R2Y8i7pfaREFZWV9WsnFb-fDA1shG2wVX0zAnI&s=VzkFZ3w_8Ni9awUbbe8AzGKdGd1bVSirI9oRJmIJjN8&e=" class="">http://therumpus.net/2015/10/reconnaissance-by-carl-phillips/</a> </span><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">At the bottom, I’ll paste his official bio.<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">*Also now on the shelf are copies of the next book we’ll discuss: Cole Swensen’s <i class="">Landscapes on a Train</i>. This is available to regular members, we only ask that you only take a copy of you feel that you can make at least one of the sessions focused on her work. The first of these sessions will be 11/13 and then she herself will join us on 12/4. Here is a review of the new collection: <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.dailycal.org_2015_10_15_cole-2Dswensens-2Dlatest-2Dpoetry-2Dcaptures-2Dlandscapes-2Din-2Dmotion&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=8cSd4RelTaQK6s0DUDTVyczHaZ6D1hVGv78kYH8e554&e=" class="">http://www.dailycal.org/2015/10/15/cole-swensens-latest-poetry-captures-landscapes-in-motion</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Onward,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Richard Deming, Group Co-coordinator</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">+++++</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><p class="">Referred to as “one of America’s most original, influential, and
productive of lyric poets,” Carl Phillips is the author of a dozen books
of poetry and two works of criticism. He was born in Everett,
Washington in 1959, and his family moved frequently around the United
States. He earned an AB from Harvard, an MAT from the University of
Massachusetts, and an MA in creative writing from Boston University.
Before teaching English at the university level, he taught Latin at
several high schools. He is Professor of English at Washington
University in St. Louis, where he also teaches creative writing.
Phillips was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in
2006, and since 2011 he has served as the judge for the Yale Series of
Younger Poets.<br class=""> <br class=""> Phillips’s most recent books of poetry are <em class="">Silverchest </em>(2013, nominated for the Griffin Prize), <em class="">Double Shadow</em> (2011, winner <em class="">Los Angeles Times</em> Book Prize for Poetry and finalist for the National Book Award), and <em class="">Speak Low</em> (2009, finalist for the National Book Award). His other books include <em class="">Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006</em>, <em class="">Riding Westward</em> (2006), <em class="">The Rest of Love</em> (2004), and <em class="">Rock Harbor</em> (2002). Another collection of poetry, <em class="">Reconnaissance, </em>is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. <br class=""><br class="">Phillips has also published works of criticism and translation. Graywolf Press has published two collections of his essays: <em class="">The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination</em> (2014) and <em class="">Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry</em> (2004)<em class="">. </em>Oxford University Press published Phillips’s translation of Sophocles’s <em class="">Philoctetes </em>(2003).<br class=""> <br class="">
A classicist by training, Phillips often employs classical forms and
makes allusions to classical literature, art, and music. While in his
teens, Phillips began to write poetry. “I was a nerdy kid,” he told
Lawrence Biemiller in the <em class="">Chronicle of Higher Education.</em> “Maybe
it has to do with creating your own world. For some people it’s easier
to create a world that you can rely on, that travels with you.” Phillips
entered Harvard University on a scholarship, where he studied Latin and
Greek. For a long time he did not write any poetry, but in 1990, while
coming to terms with his homosexuality, he rediscovered his poetic
voice. <br class=""><br class="">
Phillips received critical acclaim early in his career. His debut book <em class="">In the Blood</em> was the winner of the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize in 1992. <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_archive_poet.html-3Fid-3D1447&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=ZhRzjReLbenE3SlCEt5iZ1Y3pBsFQxlkpwneeIYCaZM&e=" class="">Alfred Corn</a>, writing in the <em class="">Kenyon Review,</em> described the style of <em class="">In the Blood</em> as
metamorphic: “As with symbolism, words are used in associative rather
than logical ways, constantly shifting ground and modulating context so
that the central subject is never made baldly explicit. The poems (most
of them) will support several interpretations, though no single
interpretation perfectly.”<br class=""> <br class="">A decade later, Phillips’s collections <em class="">Pastoral</em> (2000) and <em class="">The Tether</em> (2001, winner of the Kingsley Tuft Poetry Award) were also well received in critical circles. The poetry in <em class="">Pastoral</em> continues to “echo the sorrow, alienation and eros of bodily existence,” summarized a <em class="">Publishers Weekly</em> critic, who called the work “brilliant.” Philip Clark in <em class="">Lambda Book Report</em> argued that the poems in <em class="">Pastoral</em> are
written in a style different from Phillips’s previous collections; they
are “more daring than anything Phillips has tried previously, and when
they work, the poems create a pleasantly disorienting effect.” Tina Barr
in the <em class="">Boston Review</em> found the poems in the collection “self-reflexive, musical, referential, educated, and passionate.” <br class=""><br class="">Writing on <em class="">Double Shadow </em>(2011) in the <em class="">Chicago Tribune, </em><a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_troy-2Djollimore&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=JCFvlR-1vBtq9wHBh3oGIB7DAMcir-_2_vo-apltl0M&e=" class="">Troy Jollimore</a> says, “the perpetually shifting textures and shardlike quality of Phillips' language are reminiscent of <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_john-2Dashbery&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=kIopBkW5_89z5Ls5gZaQlYBTjgLnyBoSoSpXrKofL-Y&e=" class="">John Ashbery</a>.” Unlike Ashbery's playful universe, “Phillips'
is a somber, autumnal landscape, one that is illuminated by moments of
ephemeral, ethereal beauty.” Jenny Mueller, reviewing <em class="">Speak Low, </em>writes that the work “brings echoes to the reader's ear of such 20th-century eminences as <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_wallace-2Dstevens&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=FUUTV6Ue7IJJlhwm6QKLgzo3VoGH2Oj3xZSLfr2SSu4&e=" class="">Wallace Stevens</a>, <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_john-2Dashbery&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=kIopBkW5_89z5Ls5gZaQlYBTjgLnyBoSoSpXrKofL-Y&e=" class="">John Ashbery</a>, <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_t-2Ds-2Deliot&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=5a6izAsDK_3townXriwALsm-wOP_TX9hRnOTsDuA9dQ&e=" class="">T.S. Eliot</a> and <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_rainer-2Dmaria-2Drilke&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=ghbSwqmiVAf1uyBTQYzthg-YL9kXsKsaj7QQH-iNgLw&e=" class="">Rainer Maria Rilke</a>.
As in Rilke, Phillips' lines give his language a near-sculptural form,
something like a fountain. The poems are structures of alternating
firmness and give, as the sense spills from line to line.”<br class=""> Phillips lives in St. Louis, Missouri. </p><div class="">from <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.poetryfoundation.org_bio_carl-2Dphillips&d=AwMFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=Wv-FChPIYozrmvMKRuHmxQEBEWCLmKc9M2L_LdpEOUI&m=5YbnQn1hB2gRwG3nJQUkxkaA2PeFvKQhhnBj1l0Gwis&s=tEpleiPs4HJttwiyfs2kom1Fr57w79_tb3C0LPqrVBk&e=" class="">http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/carl-phillips</a></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>