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Mary Cardinale Suzanne Richardson Gary Leising Bill Kaufmann The Spectator is published bi-annually by the English Department at Utica College Send correspondence regarding The Spectator to: Dorothy Obernesser doberne@utica.edu
no one at the party will talk to, like the carillon of ice shifting in her glass. In this poem as well as in selections from The Needle about her native Texas and its dirt fields and convenience store parking lots, Grotz, who teaches at the University of Rochester, demonstrated how poetry can be found anywhere. Her poems illustrate the need for attentiveness, for the lush and luminous quality provided by the particular details that, she told our workshop students, give life and meaning to poetry. It was a treat to hear, in addition to poems from the prize winning book, some new work. The reading opener was one of her translations of the French poet, Patrice de La Tour du Pin, and she concluded by reading a few new poems, including the stunning final poem Cherries. Here she gave us the sensual experience of eating cherries, engaging every smell, taste, sight, and touch
language allows. This and other new poems suggest that Grotzs next book will be one to watch out for and to savor. The Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, generously funded by alumnus Steven Critelli, is awarded to the best book published in the previous year by an upstate New York poet. Before a reception, the reading concluded with Grotz receiving the award from Mr. Critelli and Professor Emeritus Eugene Paul Nassar. This summer and fall we will be reading for the second award, excited about the possibilities of the poetry between the many books covers. That winner will visit campus in the Spring of 2014. In the meantime, please check out Jennifer Grotzs books The Needle and Cusp from Houghton Mifflin and her translation of Patrice de La Tour du Pins Psalms of All My Days, from Carnegie Mellon.
penultimate syllable). I had to get used to the grading scale; it ranges from 5 (A) to 2 (F); there seems to be no D. My last class was June 13; I turned in a final grade of 5 for six students; the lowest grade was 3.5 (once). In addition to holding certain business meetings I was not expected to attend (for one, these were conducted in Polish), the department met once a month in the evening to listen to a paper by a member. A young assistant professor talked about Jonathan Edwards; I was surprised to hear that there is a project afoot to translate Edwardss major works into contemporary Polish. A professor from Troy State University in Alabama, there on a months visit, spoke about the influence of Boethiuss The Consolation of Philosophy on Chaucers Troilus. A professor from Mills College, on a lecture tour, talked about artist books. And a theater professor from the City University of New York presented a workshop performance of Thornton Wilders evergreen Our Town; two of my students were in the cast, and there was a special twist inas-
much as the dialogue in the part of the play that has the deceased Emily visit home was given in Polish: talk about the alienation effect! Taking my cue from Uticas Harold Frederic, I lectured on Writers of the Greater New York from Washington Irving to Walter D. Edmonds. Cracows cultural offerings are extensive. I could have gone to see William Szekspirs Tragedia Makbeta and Hamlet (not to mention plays by Stoppard, Ibsen, Molier, and Pinter), but I did not want to put my very rudimentary Polish to that kind of a test and therefore passed on them. One Polish poet I have worked into my LIT 206 is Wisawa Szymborska; I secretly hoped to attend a reading by that arch-Cracovian, but she died last year and so I had to content myself with a visit to an exhibit on her life and work and a respectful gaze at her Nobel Prize medallion in the university museum in Collegium Maius, the universitys oldest building (and for me the citys most beautiful one). My good friend Barbara Krajewska, professor of chemistry 4
and twice a visitor at UC, surprised me with a copy of Wisawas most recent volume, Tutaj (=Here). Being in Poland, I had to miss the award ceremony for the first winner of UCs Nassar poetry prize, established by English alumnus Steve Critelli. I had heard that the winner, Jennifer Grotz of the University of Rochester, spent summers in Cracow, and sure enough, days before we left for home there was a big announcement of a conversation among poets of whom Jennifer would be one (once again, no luck, as the event was scheduled for after our departure). Nothing remains but to thank all those who made my and my wifes time in Cracow so memorable. I very much hope that the exchange will flourish (my colleague Prof. Friend of our journalism department was at JU the same time I was, and assistant professor of sociology Katarzyna Zieliska of JU is here at UC this semester) and that it will in time include students. Next year is a special year, as JU will celebrate the 650th anniversary of its founding.
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