FARMINGTON – The University of Maine at Farmington’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program is proud to announce award-winning poet Ravi Shankar as a lunchtime reader in its 2008-2009 Visiting Writers Series. Shankar will be reading from his work at noon on Thursday, March 5, in room C123 in the UMF Olsen Student Center.
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A poet-in-residence at Central Connecticut State University, Shankar is the founding editor of “Drunken Boat,” an international online journal of the arts. “Instrumentality,” his first book, was published by Word Press in May, 2004, and was a finalist for the 2005 Connecticut Book Awards. He has also collaborated with Reb Livingston on the chapbook “Wanton Textiles”
(No Tell Books, 2006), selections of which appeared in Fringe Magazine and Beltway Poetry Quarterly.
Shankar’s poetry and critical work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Iowa Review, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, the AWP Writer’s Chronicle, Fulcrum, and other publications.
Shankar currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Connecticut Center for the Book, has been a commentator on National Public Radio and British Broadcasting Corporation, reviews poetry for the Contemporary Poetry Review and along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, edited “Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond” (W.W Norton & Co., 2008).
Shankar has taught at Queens College, University of New Haven, and Columbia University, where he received his master’s degree in poetry.
This literary event is offered in conjunction with the UMF Humanities Department, Diversity Committee, and Writers Guild. It is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a signing by the author.
For more information regarding this event, please contact Jeffrey Thomson, UMF assistant professor of Creative Writing at 778-7454, or at jeffrey.thomson@maine.edu.
