English Department spring events: Visiting Writers Series, open mic nights, and more

In the coming months, the English Department and affiliated student clubs will host a half-dozen or more events, welcoming poets and scholars from across the country and celebrating student voices.

Tuesday, April 9

Visiting Writers Series: Ryan Skrabalak and Alicia Wright

6 p.m., Niemann Media Theater

Ryan Skrabalak wrote “The Technicolor Sycamore 10,000 Afternoon Family Earth Band Revue” (Ursus Americanus, 2024), “The Orchids” (above/ground press, 2024) and other books. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where he edits the poetry press and record label Spiral Editions. He also organizes for AFT Local 6403, instructs at the University of Kansas, and deejays on community radio.

Alicia Wright’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in the Paris Review, Kenyon Review, West Branch, and jubilat, among others. She has received fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Denver, where she is a Ph.D. candidate in English and Literary Arts. She is the editor of Annulet and the forthcoming Annulet Editions, and lives in Iowa City, where she hosts the occasional poetry reading series Normie Creep in the Sacred Grove.

Friday, April 12

“Singin’ with the Swifties”

6:30-9:30 p.m., Campbell Student Union (STU) Fireplace
Enjoy a open mic night with karaoke and Taylor Swift trivia. Co-sponsored by Poetry Underground, Carthage Swifties, and WAVE Radio.

Thursday, April 18

Maxwell Conversations in the Humanities: Kenneth Daley

12:30-2 p.m., Niemann Media Theater
Kenneth Daly will present a talk and host a conversation on Walter Pater — his biography and interests and reasons why he is an important and provocative literary figure — his insistent crossing of boundaries, fusion of critical and creative writing, commitment to skeptical and relativist thinking, privileging of intensity, transgression, ‘moments of strange excitement’ at once intellectual, emotional, and suffused with the erotic.

Kenneth Daley is associate professor of English at Columbia College Chicago and former department chair at both Columbia College Chicago and Ohio University. He is the author of “The Rescue of Romanticism: Walter Pater and John Ruskin” (Ohio University Press, 2001), and essays and book chapters on Pater and other subjects. Currently, he is editing “Volume 6: Appreciations, and Studies and Reviews, 1890–1894 for The Collected Works of Walter Pater,” to be published by Oxford University Press. He was awarded an NEH grant for the summer seminar Literature and the Visual Arts, held at the Boston Athenaeum, and he has worked as a film/video archivist for Martin Scorsese.

Sunday, May 5

Centrique Magazine Premiere

2-5 p.m., Todd Wehr Center (TWC) 128s
Everyone is invited to the premiere of this year’s Centrique Journal of Literature and the Arts! Semi-formal dress encouraged, but not mandatory! 

Tuesday, May 7

Senior Chapbook Reading, English Department Awards Ceremony, and Open Mic

6 p.m., Niemann Media Theater
Hear readings, celebrate accomplishments, and see performances.

TBD

The English Players Performance

TBD
Carthage students, faculty, and staff will perform scenes from Shakespeare’s plays.

Contact Poetry Underground and Centrique for information about their weekly meetings and how to get involved. All are welcome and we hope to see you many times!

Sponsoring Department, Office, or Organization:

English Department

For more information, contact:

Rick Meier: rmeier@carthage.edu