Tonight a conversation with Rachel Hadas, the poet, professor, essayist and translator about her newest book: Poems for Camilla. February 28, 2019

“At a moment when ignorance, stupidity, and a dogged refusal to learn from the past are rampant, how salutary to read a very contemporary poet in dialogue with Virgil about such timeless and pertinent issues as war, continuity, guilt, grief, and consolation.”

-Marlilyn Hacker writing about Poems for Camilla

I first met Rachel about nine years ago during the days just after The Greek Poets was published. It was at a reading held to launch the book. I forget the venue—a mid-town art gallery—but I didn’t forget her. I knew I wanted her to be a guest on Graffiti but the timing just wasn’t right. Again the timing was bad when we met a few years later at a reading at The Cornelia Street Cafe. Lamentably The Cornelia Street Cafe is now gone.

Recently I was at a reading at Hudson Valley Writers Center where Rachel was one of the featured artists. After the program I approached her and…well the result is she’s here tonight.

Rachel Hadas studied classics at Harvard, poetry at Johns Hopkins, and comparative literature at Princeton. Between college and graduate school she spent four years in Greece, an experience that surfaces variously in much of her work. Since 1981 she has taught in the English Department of the Newark (NJ) campus of Rutgers University, and has also taught courses in literature and writing at Columbia and Princeton, as well as serving on the poetry faculty of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the West Chester Poetry Conference. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant in poetry, and an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Rachel Hadas is the author of many books of poetry, prose, and translations. A memoir about her husband’s illness, “Strange Relation,” was published by Paul Dry Books in 2011. Her previous book of poems, “The Golden Road,” was published by Northwestern University Press in the fall of 2012.

from Rachel’s website (see link below)

So remember: Tune in tonight at 7pm to listen to my conversation with Rachel. The program is available at our website CosmosFM.org or on the radio at WNYE, 91.5 or use the TUNEIN app on your smart device.

CLICK HERE FOR the link to Rachel’s website.

CLICK HERE FOR the link to Rachel’s wikipedia page.

CLICK HERE FOR the POETRY FOUNDATION page dedicated to Rachel Hadas.

CLICK HERE FOR the video “Equipoise” featuring Rachel.

CLICK HERE FOR the video “Cento” featuring Rachel.

CLICK HERE FOR Back Roads Readings 2019.

 

Back at the end of October 2017 I had Panio Gianopoulos on the show to talk about his new book of stories entitled: How to Get into Our House and Where We Keep the Money. On Friday night March 8 he will be at Hudson Valley Writers Center along with Daneille Trussoni. It will be an exciting evening of readings.

CLICK HERE FOR more information about the event.

CLICK HERE FOR for the link to the blog entry for the show in October 2017.