A.K. Smith Reading Series Opens with Award-winning Poet Ryan Black

A reading by Ryan Black, whose book of poetry, The Tenant of Fire, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, kicks off the Fall 2021 Allan K. Smith Virtual Reading Series on Thursday, September 30, at 7:00 p.m.

Ciaran Berry, director of Trinity College’s Creative Writing Program and associate professor of English, organizes the A.K. Smith Reading Series. Said Berry, “Writers are selected by the creative writing faculty, often in connection with what we’re teaching. We always try to invite a mixture of newer and more established writers.”

Black, who also wrote Death of a Nativist, selected for the Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship, has published previously or has work forthcoming in The Best American Poetry, Blackbird, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly, and elsewhere.

“Because of COVID, we’ve been hosting our events over Zoom for the last while, but this has also made it possible to bring some writers to Trinity that we mightn’t otherwise be able to host,” said Berry. “Last year we had former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith and award-winning fiction writer Lauren Groff as part of the series. This semester we will have [on October 21] the poet Terrance Hayes, whose awards include a MacArthur Genius Grant, and [on November 11] experimental fiction writer Teresa Carmody.”

All of the virtual A.K. Smith Reading Series events are free and open to the public.

Anyone interested in attending the virtual A.K. Smith Virtual Reading Series may register here.

For more information about the series, visit the English Department website here.

Click to see the A.K. Smith Fall 2021 Virtual Reading Series poster.