“I chose McGrath because I see him as a poet with Whitman’s ambition to get America into his poems, to turn outward now inward in an effort to do justice to its variety, its possibilities and its failures,” Dennis says. The two alternate choosing the presenter, but don’t make a final decision until they agree on a choice.
The annual Silverman Reading is presented in memory of Oscar Silverman, the distinguished UB scholar and teacher who chaired the Department of English, directed the University Libraries and helped develop UB’s remarkable collection of 20th-century poetry and rare books, including the Robert Graves poetry collection and the works of James Joyce.Īnsie Baird, Silverman’s daughter, administers the readings with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Dennis, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English. The event is free and open to the public. His collection “Spring Comes to Chicago” (1996), a Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winner, turns on the axis of one of his best known and representative works, “The Bob Hope Poem,” a 70-page piece whose shape, he told Poetry Magazine, “is not a narrative, but a symphonic structure.” Strongly influenced by Walt Whitman, McGrath writes mostly documentary, free-verse poems that probe American culture and commerce. 11 at the Jacobs Executive Development Center, 672 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant recipient and former Guggenheim fellow Campbell McGrath will present the 2016 Oscar Silverman Reading at 8 p.m.
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