Charles Simic Memorial Event

A gathering on April 19th, 2023 to commemorate poet Charles Simic.

Speakers:

Ada Limon, Poet Laureate of the United States (video)

Andrew Periale is a poet, playwright, puppeteer and polyglot. He was for nearly 40 years the editor of Puppetry International magazine and performed with his wife Bonnie for many years as the Emmy-nominated Perry Alley Theatre.

Nicky Simic, daughter of Charles Simic

Alexandria Peary (MFA, PhD) serves as New Hampshire Poet Laureate. She is the author of nine books, most recently, Battle of Silicon Valley at Daybreak. The recipient of a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, she received the Iowa Poetry Prize and Best of NH for Inspiring Artist. Alex specializes in mindful writing. She serves as editor-in-chief at Under the Madness Magazine, a magazine edited by New Hampshire teens, publishing teens worldwide, and is a professor at Salem State University. 

David Rivard is the author of seven books of poetry, the most recent of which is Some of You Will Know. His work has won wide recognition from PEN, the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles Times, and Civitella Ranieri, among others.  Rivard lives on the coast of Maine, and he’s taught in the MFA Program at UNH since 2008.

Jennifer Militello is the author of The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021), called “emotionally resonant by Publishers Weekly and “an incantatory homage to love” by the Times Literary Supplement, and the memoir Knock Wood, winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize (Dzanc Books, 2019), as well as four previous collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, POETRY, and Tin House. She teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at New England College.

A Message from the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets (video)

Carolyn Forché is an American poet, translator, and memoirist. Her books of poetry are Blue Hour, The Angel of History, The Country Between Us, Gathering the Tribes, and In the Lateness of the World. Her memoir, What You Have Heard Is True, was published by Penguin Press in 2019. In 2013, Forché received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship given for distinguished poetic achievement.

Andrew Merton’s journalism and essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Boston Magazine. His poetry has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere.  He is the author of three books of poetry: Evidence that We Are Descended from Chairs (with a foreword by Charles Simic) (Accents Publishing, 2012), Lost and Found (Accents Publishing, 2016), and Final Exam (Accents Publishing, 2019).  He is a professor emeritus of English at the University of New Hampshire.

Michael Ferber came to the English Dept in 1987 and was quickly introduced to Charlie, who had been living in the same little town he and Susan had just bought a house in.  He retired from teaching the same day as Charlie in 2018.  When he wasn't talking with Charlie and Helen, Michael taught lots of different courses in English, Humanities, and Classics, and wrote lots of books and articles, mainly on the Romantic poets.

Maria Chelko is the author of several chapbooks, including Manhattations, which was selected by Mary Ruefle for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. Maria’s poems appear in numerous journals, Bennington Review, Black Warrior Review, Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, Missouri Review, and Poetry International among them. She graduated in 2010 with an MFA in Writing from the University of New Hampshire, and she lives in Manhattan where she works as a communications manager at the Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration. 

Mark Gosztyla earned his BA in English ('04) and MFA in Writing ('09) at UNH and was a four-year member of the Men's Cross Country and Track & Field teams. He is the author of EVERYTHING IS OBVIOUS AFTER IT HAPPENS from Finishing Line Press; poems of his can also be found in journals like FEED, LUMINA, minnesota review, & Watershed Review.  Mark is currently the Head of the English Department at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, where he lives with his family.  

Noah Burton is the author of two poetry collections, Look Out Animal and Clothesline Saga, both from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press. His poems have appeared in PEN America Poetry Series, Sundog Lit, Outlook Springs, among others. The owner and operator of Knock Knock: Natural Coffins and Custom Woodworking, and a member of the band, Lightsleeper, Noah currently lives in Burlington, Vermont.  He graduated from the MFA in Writing Program in 2015.