WesPress x Shapiro
Wesleyan University Press is one of the world’s outstanding publishers of contemporary poetry. The Press has garnered national and international accolades for its work, including six Pulitzer Prizes, three National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, three Griffin Poetry Prizes, and an Anisfield-Wolf Award, among many others. Its authors include John Cage, Norman O. Brown, M.C. Richards, Samuel R. Delany, Joy Harjo, James Wright, James Tate, Peter Gizzi, Brenda Hillman, Rae Armantrout, Yusef Komunyakaa, M. NourbeSe Philip, Sally Banes, Ralph Lemon, and Tricia Rose.
The WesPress x Shapiro series celebrates recent publications by the press’s authors through evenings of readings and conversation. All events are free and open to the public.
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Kazim Ali
Kazim Ali’s Sukun: New and Selected Poems is due out from Wesleyan in the fall of 2023. Ali’s work encompasses multiple genres, including poetry (The Voice of Sheila Chandra, Inquisition, Sky Ward, The Far Mosque, The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue) and the cross-genre texts Bright Felon and Wind Instrument. His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet and among his books of essays are the hybrid memoir Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies and Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice, and a memoir of his Canadian childhood, Northern Light. Ali is also an accomplished translator (of Marguerite Duras, Sohrab Sepehri, Ananda Devi, Mahmoud Chokrollahi and others) and an editor of several anthologies and books of criticism. After a career in public policy and organizing, Ali taught at various colleges and universities, including Oberlin College, Davidson College, St. Mary's College of California, and Naropa University. He is currently a Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego.
Photo Credit: Jesse Sutton-Hough
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Evie Shockley
Evie Shockley’s poetry books published by Wesleyan include Pulitzer Prize finalist semiautomatic , Hurston/Wright Legacy Award winner the new black, and most recently, suddenly we. She has also published a book of criticism, Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry, and numerous essays. Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University and the 2023 recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award, which “recognizes poetic genius and is bestowed upon one distinguished American poet each year” by the Poetry Society of America.
Photo Credit: Stéphane Robolin