Heaven-Photo: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

In a discussion with poet Lawrence Joseph about his work on his debut book of poetry, The Ground, (FSG, 2012) Phillips discusses  his work as a translator and a literary critic and how these affect his creative lens. He also discusses the importance of myth, story, and disturbances of the natural world in his work, stating: “There’s something monumental and terrifying about myth when it’s allowed to become again something more than a euphemism for fiction––as in “that’s just a myth”––and it creeps with conviction into your belief system.”

The Ground will be available in the City Tech bookstore.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips, photo: BlueFlower Arts

We are pleased to announce this year’s guest speaker, poet and essayist Rowan Ricardo Phillips. Phillips is author of two poetry collections published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Heaven (2015) and The Ground: Poems (2013).  Phillips is the the recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim fellowship for poetry, the Whiting Writers’ Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award and the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Heaven, an award that recognizes  works that contribute to our understanding racism and cultural diversity.

Phillips’ poetry and writing has appeared in The New Republic, The New Yorker, Poetry, Granta, and The Paris Review. He is a contributing writer for Artforum Magazine and has written extensively online about soccer for The New Republic and The Paris Review, where he also contributes a column on basketball. In addition to his work in the field of poetry, Phillips writes literary criticism, art criticism, literary sports writing, and non-fiction. The author of the influential critical study of poetry When Blackness Rhymes with Blackness, Phillips is also the translator of Salvador Espriu’s story collection Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth as well as numerous other works from Catalan, Spanish, and Italian.

Born in New York City in 1974 Phillips earned his BA at Swarthmore College and his PhD at Brown University. He has taught at Stony Brook, Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia. A Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, he divides his time between New York City and Barcelona.

We are getting very excited for our 35th annual Literary Arts Festival tomorrow night. Our volunteers have put together a great show with a surprise film, dancing by the City Tech Steppers, readings by students and contest winners, and the featured writer Mary Gaitskill.

Please come support us in 2016.