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Award-Winning Poet and Director of Smith College Poetry Center Ellen Doré Watson to Read in Smith Series
 NORTHAMPTON, Mass.—Smith College will present a reading by Ellen Doré Watson, who was hailed by Library Journal as one of “24 Poets for the 21st Century,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 19, in Stoddard Auditorium. This event is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible.
The reading celebrates the publication of “Dogged Hearts“ (Tupelo Press, September 2010), Watson’s fifth volume of poems, in which she lends her voice to a multiplicity of characters, each with his or her own dilemma, distraction or disarray. “The poems are wild, delirious—they go every which way,” writes poet Gerald Stern. Earlier books include “Broken Railings,” winner of the Green Lake Chapbook Prize from Owl Creek Press, and “Ladder Music,” winner of the New England/New York award from Alice James Books.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky wrote of Watson’s first book, “We Live in Bodies,” “Watson is an eloquent, passionate poet,” and author Ruth Stone praises Watson’s “tough, ingenious lyricism.”
Watson’s honors include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grant, a Rona Jaffe Writers Award and a National Endowment Translation Fellowship. She has translated a dozen books from the Brazilian Portuguese, including “The Alphabet in the Park,” the selected poems of Brazilian Adélia Prado (Wesleyan University Press), and has also co-translated contemporary Palestinian poetry from the Arabic with Saadi Simawe, most notably in the volume Iraqi Poetry Today (Zephyr Press).
In addition to teaching creative writing at Smith, Watson is on the faculty of Colrain Manuscript Conference and the Drew University Low-Residency MFA program in poetry and translation, and she teaches a writing workshop in Northampton. She also serves as poetry and translation editor of The Massachusetts Review.
Watson’s reading will be followed by a book sale and signing. For further information, contact Michaela Cahillane in the Poetry Center office at (413) 585-4891.
For disability access information or to request accommodations, call (413) 585-2407. To request a sign language interpreter specifically, call (413) 585-2071 (voice or TTY) or e-mail ODS@smith.edu. All requests must be made at least 10 days prior to the event.
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