On Thursday, September 20th at 7pm, the McFarlin Library will host a poetry reading featuring the works of Stevie Smith. Come hear Smith’s work being performed by local actors as well as audio of Smith reading her own poetry. This event is further special because it marks the 110th anniversary of Stevie Smith’s birth.
This event will be held in the Ann and Jack Graves Faculty study of the library and is open to the public. This marks the third event in a series that highlights poets whose papers are held by the University of Tulsa’s Special Collections department.
Stevie Smith was a British woman poet who lived from 1902 until 1971. She is known for her poetry which she insisted on publishing with her sketches, many of which are nothing more than doodles. This unique combination of text and image was so important to her, however, that she often refused to publish the one without the other. Several of Smith’s doodle-poems will be on display during the event.
This reading is being put together by Adrian Alexander, who had the vision to initiate the McFarlin Library Poetry Series. The event is being organized by TU doctoral candidate Kristen Marangoni, who is writing her dissertation about Stevie Smith and other modernist authors who doodled in their manuscripts. For questions about the event, feel free to contact her at Kristen-leatherwood@utulsa.edu.
— Guest post by Kristen Marangoni