Sonnets from the American: A Virtual Symposium

Description

The Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, The Writing Seminars, and The Hopkins Review present "Sonnets from the American: A Virtual Symposium."

Nearly 800 years since its invention, the sonnet is in a period of extraordinary production and development, taken up by poets from every corner of the aesthetic field. In American poetry, more than 25 collections have centralized the sonnet in the last three years alone, often in book-length sonnet sequences. Formal and formally subversive sonnets by established and emerging poets show the form continuing to function as a poetic bellwether, revealing how American poets seek to engage with forbears and tradition, from homage to interrogation, as they negotiate public and private questions of nation, race, class, gender, sexuality, and diaspora within the form's peculiar confines.

The Sonnets from the American symposium (and subsequent Sonnets from the American critical anthology under contract with University of Iowa Press) will emphasize connections across literary periods and movements within the American sonnet tradition while showcasing contemporary developments. We seek to draw together the diverse critical voices, methodologies, and historical and theoretical perspectives that represent the burgeoning field of American sonnet studies to address a need at this point in the American sonnet's history for an expansive and focused examination.

This symposium is organized by Dora Malech (Johns Hopkins University) and Laura T. Smith (Stevenson University). All events will be professionally captioned live for accessibility. See the full schedule of panels and readings and the full list of presenters, including featured poets:

• Kazim Ali
• Tacey M. Atsitty
• Rosebud Ben-Oni
• Henri Cole
• Shane McCrae
• Joyelle McSweeney
• Philip Metres
• Kiki Petrosino
• Diane Seuss
• Patricia Smith

Follow along on social media with the hashtag #sonnetsfromtheamerican and on Twitter @SonnetsFrom.