Poet Ralph Angel to Read at U.Va. on Feb. 28

February 27, 2008 — Poet Ralph Angel will read from his work at the University of Virginia on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. in the U.Va. Bookstore Mezzanine. His reading, sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, is free and open to the public.

Angel is a second-generation American from Seattle and the first in his family to attend college. He recently published his fourth book, "Exceptions and Melancholies: Poems 1986-2006."

Angel's first collection, "Anxious Latitudes" (1986), was widely praised and reviewed. His second book, "Neither World" (1995), which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, garnered him national prominence. A third work, "Twice Removed" (2001), was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. His most recent literary awards include a Pushcart Prize, the Willis Barnstone Poetry Translation Prize for his translation of Federico García Lorca’s "Poem of a Deep Song" and a Fulbright Foundation fellowship.

While working freight trains for the Union Pacific Railroad, Angel earned his bachelor of arts degree at the University of Washington. He received a master of fine arts degree at the University of California-Irvine and has lived in and around Los Angeles ever since. Since his early college days, he has traveled extensively in Europe, North Africa and Central and South America. He is currently Edith R. White Chair of English and Creative Writing at the University of Redlands and a member of the MFA in Creative Writing faculty at Vermont College.

For information, contact Sydney Blair, director of U.Va.'s Creative Writing Program, at (434) 924-6675 or shb7f@virginia.edu.

Media Contact