A Mississippi native who grew up on a 2,400-acre farm, living in a "weird old house my great-grandfather built," escaped his surroundings via books and television. His first love -- music -- would eventually be replaced by poetry, which is what brings him to Denison University as the next guest writer on the Harriet Ewens Beck Visiting Writers Series. Poet, critic, and editor T. R. Hummer, will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday (Nov. 7) in the Barney-Davis Board Room. This lecture is free and open to the public.

"As a writer, he is one of the most important mid-career poets in America," said Denison Professor David Baker who also serves as poetry editor at The Kenyon Review. "He is a personal writer with a public sense of responsibility. Part of that responsibility is political, and part is artistic." Hummer is the author of nine books of poetry and a book of essays, including "Useless Virtues" (2001), "Walt Whitman In Hell" (1996), and "The Infinity Sessions" (2005), all from Louisiana State University Press. His newest book "Bluegrass Wasteland: Selected Poems 1978-2003" was published this year by Arc Publications. "His poetry is, more than anything else, fun to read," exclaims Baker, "fun for its allusions and rich densities and fun for its stories and sounds."

After earning his bachelor's degree at Mississippi State and his master's degree at the University of Southern Mississippi, Hummer published his first chapter book "Translation of Light." In 1980, with a doctorate in English completed at the University of Utah, he went to teach at Oklahoma State University and became poetry editor of the Cimarron Review.

Now the director of creative writing at Arizona State University in Tempe, he has taught in Utah, Oklahoma, Middlebury, University of Oregon, Virginia Commonwealth University, and University of Georgia. At Kenyon College he served as editor of The Kenyon Review, at Middlebury College he edited the New England Review and at the University of Georgia, he edited The Georgia Review. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Southern Review. He has received the Hanes Poetry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Calendar Listing:

CALENDAR LISTING: Denison University, Granville -- The Harriet Ewens Beck Fund hosts T.R. Hummer; 8 p.m., Tuesday (Nov. 7) in Barney Davis Board Room. Free and open to the public.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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