Syracuse University

Spring 2012 Raymond Carver Reading Series features Native American poet

Judy Holmes
(315) 443-8085

The Spring 2012 Raymond Carver Reading Series will continue on Feb. 15 with Syracuse University alumnus and award-winning poet Santee Frazier G’09 at 5:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium. The reading will be preceded by a question-and-answer session from 3:45-4:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU’s pay lots.

Frazier is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. His first book of poems, “Dark Thirty” (University of Arizona Press, 2009), addresses such subjects as poverty, alcoholism, cruelty and homelessness. Critics describe the poems as “unashamedly sharp, hard hitting and articulate … to reveal Native lives as tender as they are grim.” According to the publisher’s note, “Dark Thirty” takes readers on a loosely autobiographical trip through Cherokee country, the backwoods towns and the big cities, providing portraits of Native people surviving in contemporary America. “Like viewing photographs that repel us even as they draw us in, we are pulled into these poems. We’re compelled to turn the page and read the next poem. And the next. And each poem rewards us with a world freshly seen and remade for us of sound and image and voice.”

Frazier is the recipient of several awards, including the School for Advanced Research Indigenous Writer-in-Residence Fellowship (2011) and the Lannan Residency Fellowship (2009). His poems have appeared in American Poet, Narrative Magazine, Ontario Review, Ploughshares and other literary journals. He holds a B.F.A. in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from SU.

Named for the great short story writer and poet who taught at SU in the 1980s, the Raymond Carver Reading Series is a vital part of Syracuse’s literary life. Presented by the creative writing program in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, the series each year brings 12-14 prominent writers to campus to read their works and interact with students.

Spring 2012 Series Schedule
The series will continue with the following authors. All readings begin at 5:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium. Question-and-answer sessions are from 3:45-4:30 p.m. Further information is available by calling 315-443-2174.

• March 7: Christopher Boucher G’02, managing editor of Post Road Magazine and adjunct faculty member at Boston College.
• March 21: Ben Marcus, author of “The Flame Alphabet” (Knopf, 2012) and “Notable American Women” (Vintage, 2002) and associate professor in Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Marcus is the creative writing program’s 2012 Richard Elman Visiting Writer.
• April 4: Jay Rogoff, author of “The Art of Gravity” (Louisiana State University Press, 2011) and a lecturer at Skidmore College.
• April 25: Kelle Groom, author of “I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl” (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2011) and contributing editor for The Florida Review.