Mary Szybist in town

Poet Mary Szybist will be on campus for a couple of days this week: we had scheduled a visit to my intro creative writing class, but because my class meets at noon, we were able to book a larger space for a Writers at Work talk up at the Writing Center (my class will attend but there will be room for others, too). Mary is also giving a public reading on Tuesday night at Bucknell Hall.

I've been re-reading Mary's book, Granted, and I'm struck again by her poems' inventive engagement with their subjects, and with their structural suspension (I don't know what else to call it): she uses the colon and dash to create connections and extend possibilities. I'm not sure I even have the capacity any more to write critically about so much of the poetry I genuinely like (I'm not sure it's wise to make this confession, but really, my brain feels tired lately), but reading this book makes me want to go back to my desk and try writing something new.