College of Arts & Sciences

Poetry-in-the-Round invites the world's most compelling and celebrated writers to Seton Hall University each year to read and discuss their works with students and community members. Among the many poets, novelists and critics who have come to Seton Hall are Azar Nafisi, Billy Collins, Thomas Lynch, Amy Tan, George Plimpton, Harold Bloom, Adrienne Rich, Jonathan Frazen, Frank McCourt, John Updike, Arthur Miller, Ted Hughes, Jorie Graham, Nadine Gordimer, Derek Walcott and John Ashbery. 

For more information about the series, call Nathan Oates, Director at (973) 761-9388 or e-mail Nathan.Oates@shu.edu.

Spring 2012 Events

Ben LernerBen Lerner
Thursday, February 16, 7 p.m.
Faculty Lounge of the University Center


Ben Lerner is the author of the novel, Leaving the Atocha Station (Coffee House, 2011), and three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), Angle of Yaw (2006), and Mean Free Path (2010), all published by Copper Canyon Press. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry, a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, and a Howard Foundation Fellow. In 2011 he became the first American to win the Preis der Stadt Münster für Internationale Poesie for the German translation of The Lichtenberg Figures. He teaches in the writing program at Brooklyn College.

Carolyn ForcheCarolyn Forche
Thursday, March 22, 7 p.m.
Chancellor's Suite of the University Center

Renowned as a “poet of witness,” Carolyn Forché is the author of four books of poetry. Her first poetry collection, Gathering The Tribes (Yale University Press, 1976), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Her second book, The Country Between Us (Harper and Row, 1982), received the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and was also the Lamont Selection of the Academy of American Poets. Her third book of poetry, The Angel of History (HarperCollins, 1994), was chosen for The Los Angeles Times Book Award. Blue Hour is her fourth collection of poems (HarperCollins, 2003). Her articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Esquire, Mother Jones, and elsewhere. Forché has held three fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1992 received a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship. In 1998 in Stockholm, she was given the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award, in recognition of her work on behalf of human rights and the preservation of memory and culture. She is currently at work on a memoir of her years in El Salvador, Lebanon, South Africa and France. Carolyn Forché is the Lannan Visiting Professor of Poetry and Professor of English at Georgetown University.

Jess RowJess Row
Wednesday, April 4, 7 p.m.
Walsh Gallery


Jess Row is the author of two collections of short stories, The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Tin House, Conjunctions, Ploughshares and many other venues, as well as in The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/ O. Henry Awards, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. He has been named a "Best Young American Novelist" by Granta and has received a Whiting Writers Award and an NEA fellowship in fiction. He teaches at the College of New Jersey, the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and the City University of Hong Kong.

All events begin at 7 p.m. and are free.

Poetry-in-the-Round is part of the Seton Hall Arts Council. For more information about upcoming events, call (973) 313-6338, or send an e-mail to artscouncil@shu.edu.

Support the PiTR Series

Spectacular performances by first class artists is made affordable for everyone through the continued support of Seton Hall University.  You can support Poetry-in-the-Round with your tax-deductible gift.  For information please call (973) 378-2677 or you may mail your tax deductible contribution to:

Seton Hall Arts Council
College of Arts and Sciences
Room 118 Fahy Hall
400 South Orange Avenue
South Orange, New Jersey 07079

Contact Us

Arts Council
(973) 313-6338
artscouncil@shu.edu
Fahy Hall Rm. 118