On Thursday, April 26th, 2018, in honor of National Poetry Month, The Madwomen Reading Series and Carlow University present the annual events celebrating the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award.

Events are free and open to the public. Free parking.

Writers on Writing: A discussion and reading with Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon.
Aquinas Hall, Room 106, Carlow University
3:30-4:45 PM
Books available after the lecture.

A poetry reading by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, judge of the 2017 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award and Deborah Allbritain, winner of the 2017 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award.

The Kresge Center, Carlow University Commons.
Reading at 7:30 PM (book table at 7 PM)
Reception and book signing following the reading.

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon is the author of Open Interval, a 2009 National Book Award finalist, and Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, as well as Poems in Conversation and a Conversation, a chapbook collaboration with Elizabeth Alexander. She is currently at work on The Coal Tar Colors, her third poetry collection, and Purchase, a collection of essays. She has written plays and lyrics for The Cherry, an Ithaca arts collective. She was one of ten celebrated poets commissioned to write poems inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series in conjunction with the 2015 exhibit One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Works for MoMA.

Deborah Allbritain holds a master’s degree in speech pathology from University of the Pacific. She hopes to begin study next fall at San Diego State University’s MFA program in poetry. Publications and awards include: The Antioch Review, The Cortland Review, B O D Y Literature, Front Porch, Verse Daily, One, Michigan Review, Connecticut River Review, Cimarron Review, Eclectica, and others. Her poetry has been anthologized in Stand Up Poetry: The Anthology, The Unmade Bed, Harper Collins, The Book of Birth Poetry, and In the Palm of Your Hand (Tilbury House). She received two Pushcart Prize nominations in 2015. Her poem, “The Fire,” was a finalist for the Wabash Poetry Prize.

About the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award
Sponsored by the Madwomen in the Attic Creative Writing Workshops at Carlow University, the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award is an annual contest open to women writers over the age of 40 who have not published a full-length book. This award is named for the late poet Patricia Dobler, who taught for many years at Carlow University, where she directed the Women’s Creative Writing Center and the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops. She is the author of Collected Poems (Autumn House Press, 2005); Talking to Strangers (University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), which won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry; UXB (Mill Hunk Books, 1991); and Forget Your Life (University of Nebraska Press).

For more information, please contact Sarah Williams-Devereux at sewilliams412@carlow.edu or Jan Beatty at jpbeatty@carlow.edu.

This reading is sponsored by Carlow University’s English Department, Creative Writing Program, and Women’s and Gender Studies Program.