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K-State Today

March 6, 2012

Poet Ronaldo Wilson to read on Friday

Submitted by Karin Westman

Poet Ronaldo Wilson

On Friday, March 9, the department of English will host poet Ronaldo Wilson. Wilson will read from his work at 3:30 p.m. in the K-State Student Union Little Theater. A book-signing will follow the reading.

Wilson is the author of "Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man" (2008), winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and "Poems of the Black Object" (2009).

For Wilson, poetry is a way to explore and challenge cultural experiences of race, the body, sexuality, desire and trauma.

"With audacity and wit reminiscent of the work of Hilton Als, bell hooks, Frantz Fanon, and James Baldwin," reviewer Claudia Rankine notes, "Wilson decodes sociopolitical narratives around race, sexuality, and class."

Wilson has held fellowships at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Vermont Studio Center, Cave Canem, Djerassi Resident Artists Program and the Yaddo Corporation. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has taught creative writing and African American Poetics at Mount Holyoke College and has recently joined the faculty at University of California, Santa Cruz.

The reading is sponsored by the department of English, the LGBT Resource Center, the DOW Multi-Cultural Resource Center and the Creative Writing Enthusiasts.