SPC is proud to bring an exciting season of live poetry readings to students and fans of great poetry during the spring term of 2013.  During February and March, our campuses will host a pair of exciting reading events by some of the best poets working today.

Feb 7 – Peter Meinke and Denise Duhamel

Hollywood, FL poet Denise Duhamel joins local luminary Peter Meinke for reading events at both the Clearwater and St. Pete Gibbs campuses, giving readers a chance to see these two award-winning writers in person.

12:30 – 2 (Clearwater Campus)– Clearwater Campus Library

5:30 – 6:45 (SP/G Campus)- Music Center

Denise Duhamel is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, including: Ka-Ching!, Two and Two, and Mille et un sentiments.  She is a winner of an National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, she has been anthologized widely, including four volumes of The Best American Poetry.  Currently, she teaches creative writing and literature at Florida International University and lives in Hollywood, Florida. (from poets.org).

[youtube height=”315″ width=”560″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gHW-cSrPkg[/youtube]

Peter Meinke has published seven books of poems in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series, the most recent being The Contracted World:  New & More Selected Poems (2006). His book of short stories, The Piano Tuner (U. of Georgia Press, 1986) received the Flannery O’Connor Award; his second, Unheard Music, was published in 2007 by Jefferson Press, which also reprinted his book about writing, The Shape of Poetry (2008). In addition, he has published two children’s books, a monograph on the poet Howard Nemerov, and seven poetry chapbooks; a bilingual collection of poems, Maples and Orange Trees, was published in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2005. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Yorker and dozens of literary magazines; and has received numerous awards, including two NEA Fellowships, three prizes from the Poetry Society of America, two O’Henry Awards, and many others. He directed the Writing Workshop at Eckerd College for several decades.

[youtube height=”315″ width=”560″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvhbHtezR_U[/youtube]

March 12 – Billy Collins

Billy Collins is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Ballistics,The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor ofPoetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day. A distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, he was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006.

Mr. Collins will read at the Music Center on the St. Pete Gibbs campus from 12:30-2 p.m., and again at the Palladium Theatre at 7:00.  The event is free for with valid SPC student ID, $10 for general public admission.

[youtube height=”315″ width=”560″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dRrkuVTvtM[/youtube]