Burlesque Picaresque in the Rural Midwest: My Education in Poetry

The lecture will address an education in poetry from outside the borders of academia, specifically that of a poet from the rural working class. Seuss will frame the discussion by considering how the literary burlesque, and the ethos of the picaresque hero, provide models for the outsider poet whose marginality is the source of her power.

FREE TO ATTEND

Diane Seuss is the author of six books of poetry, including Modern Poetry, a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize; frank: sonnets, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Voelcker Prize; Still Life With Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Four-Legged Girl, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She was a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2021 she received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Michigan.