Join us for Poets in the Conversation Room!

Cosponsored with Grace Cavalieri, Maryland’s lOth Poet Laureate, Kymberly Taylor, Editor-in-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine, and St. John’s College. 

About the Poet

David Gewanter is author of four books of poetry: Fort Necessity (2018), War Bird (2009), The Sleep of Reason (2003), and In the Belly (1997), all published by the University of Chicago Press; and co-editor, with Frank Bidart, of Robert Lowell: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus & Giroux, Faber & Faber, 2003; paperback, 2007). The Lowell poems and notes were adapted for Robert Lowell: Selected Poems, Expanded Edition (Farrar Straus, & Giroux, 2007).

He earned a B.A. in Intellectual History from the University of Michigan (Honors College, an M.A. and Ph.D. in English at U.C. Berkeley, and then ran writing programs at Harvard. His work appears in Threepenny Review, Poetry Magazine, Boston Review, TriQuarterly, New England Review, Fulcrum, Agni, Permafrost, BeltwayPoetryQuartery.com, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Tikkun, Slate.com, Harvard Review, PoetryMagazine.com, Crossroads, Boston Globe, Semicerchio (Italy), Times Higher Education Supplement (UK), PMLA, and elsewhere; and has been anthologized in Handbook of Heartbreak, The National Poetry Competition, Arvon (UK), Literature, Poetry International, Goya en la Poesía, The Bread Loaf Anthology, New Voices (Academy of American Poets), The Hell with Love, and elsewhere.  His poetry has been translated into German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Book awards include: the John C. Zacharis first book prize, Ploughshares (for In the Belly); finalist, James Laughlin Award, American Academy of Poets (for The Sleep of Reason); the Ambassador Book Award, English Speaking Union - US, and the Contemporary Poetry Review “Book of the Year” (for Robert Lowell: Collected Poems), and “Top Ten Poetry Book, 2018” from Beltwaypoetryquarterly.com (for Fort Necessity).

Other awards include: the Whiting Emerging Writer's Award; the Witter Bynner Fellowship, (US Library of Congress); the Hopwood Essay Prize (Michigan); two Eisner Prizes and two Academy of American Poets prizes (Berkeley); the Levinson Teaching Award (for all Harvard junior faculty); and the Harvard Magazine Prize for “Most Literary Promise” (judged by Seamus Heaney).

He has been a fellow at the Bread Loaf Writer's conference; resident faculty at Georgetown’s Villa Le Balze; exchange scholar at the University of Florence; visiting writer at the University of Lodz (Poland), and visiting faculty at the University of Lisbon.

He read his poetry on the PBS Newshour and was interviewed on the US Library of Congress’s podcast, “The Poet and the Poem.”  The New York Times described him as a writer “who seems to possess that most curious and necessary of literary attributes—a moral vision.” 

About the Poets in the Conversation Room Series

In partnership with Annapolis Home Magazine, St. John’s College presents a series called Poets in the Conversation Room hosted by renowned poet, author, playwright, and tenth Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri.

“Annapolis needs poetry,” says Kymberly Taylor, poet and Editor-In-Chief of Annapolis Home Magazine. “It needs this incredible art form that helps us feel things beyond what we hear and read online, on television, and in the news.”

The poetry series is free and open to the public. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Works by the featured poets will be on display at the St. John’s College Greenfield Library and available to purchase at the St. John’s College Bookstore.

“I think it’s going to create a tremendous audience because it’s also entertaining,” says Cavalieri. “Poetry speaks to how we feel and how it is to be alive in this world—and who does not want to hear that?”

*Please note, registration is for estimating attendance; tickets are not required.