The Wordsmiths Reading Series, one of the longest-running cultural events at Newtown-based Bucks County Community College, continues its proud tradition of live readings with three exciting gatherings for the fall 2024 season.
Thursday, September 12, 12:15 p.m., Hicks Art Center Gallery
Nathan Spoon
The Language and Literature and the Arts and Communication Departments at Bucks County Community College are pleased to announce that renowned poet Nathan Spoon will present a reading of new work and favorites in the Hicks Art Center Gallery on September 12 at 12:15 p.m.
Nathan Spoon is a self-described “autistic poet with savant abilities” and author of The Importance of Being Feeble-Minded, forthcoming in the Propel Disability Poetry Series published by Nine Mile Books. His poems and essays have appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry, Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, and swamp pink, as well as the anthologies The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays, How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, Mid/South Sonnets: A Belle Point Press Anthology, and The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. He is editor of Queerly and has read his poems at Penn, Vanderbilt, Yale, and elsewhere.
The reading is organized in conjunction with the exhibition “Dreams of Flora & Fauna.” Practicing from the Center for Creative Works and Studio Route 29 that support artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the participating exhibition artists’ works range from ceramics, drawings, monoprints, paintings, puppetry, performance, and weaving. Artworks in which animals appear are grouped into areas they are found together in real life or classified; sea, safari, farm, birds, dinosaurs, cats and dogs, bears and spiders. The flowers and plant works separate the animal groups, visually registering their taxonomies.
Visitors to Nathan Spoon’s reading and the public are invited to attend the closing reception for both exhibitions in Hicks Art Center “Dreams of Flora and Fauna” and “Endless Summer” later in the afternoon on September 12 from 4 – 7 pm. The reading and reception with light refreshments are free and open to the public.
For more information about the art exhibitions, please contact Clifford Eberly, Exhibitions Associate, at [email protected] or 215-968-8432.
Friday, October 25, 7:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
Kasey Jueds and Bernadette McBride
The next reading in the fall series features poets Kasey Jueds and Bernadette McBridge who will read selected works in room 142 of the historic Tyler Hall on the Newtown Campus on October 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 16, 1 p.m., Tyler Hall 142 | Thomas Devaney and 2024 Poet Laureate
The final reading in the fall series features Thomas Devaney and the still-to-be-selected 2024 Poet Laureate.
About the Wordsmiths Reading Series
The first Wordsmiths reading was in the 1960s, and featured Allen Ginsburg strumming on his guitar, and chanting verses to the audience as they swayed sitting on top of cushions on the floor. Since then, the series has featured dozens of outstanding and respected poets over the years. In recent years, the series has also featured renowned fiction writers. Poets featured in the series have won a host of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book award, and the PEN Literary Award.
As the founder and leader of the renowned Wordsmiths series, Bucks County Community College has distinguished itself among Philadelphia-area colleges and universities, and has become the home of a vibrant community of writers, poetry lovers, and supporters of the arts.
Ethel Rackin, PhD, a Language and Literature professor at the College, is the director of the Wordsmiths Reading Series and Poet Laureate Program. Dr. Rackin has been organizing these public collaborations since 2010, shortly after she began her teaching career at Bucks. For more information on the Wordsmiths Reading Series, visit bucks.edu/wordsmiths or contact Dr. Rackin at [email protected].
