Poet Michael Blanchard Reads from 'Naming the Silence'

Join us on Sunday, February 25 when BRG's Sundays@4 series welcomes poet Michael Blanchard back to his hometown for a reading from his new acclaimed book, Naming the Silence: New & Selected Poems.

Published just this past September, Naming the Silence: New & Selected Poems is a welcomed new collection by a distinctive voice in American poetry. Deeply lyrical and finely crafted, the 53 poems presented reveal a practiced command of nuanced phrasing, versification, and evocative imagery. With subject matter both mundane and metaphysical, these works are the result of the rich interplay within the creative imagination of memory, discerning observation of the everyday world, and sensitive reflection on experience.

It has been nominated for the Paterson Poetry Prize, awarded annually to the strongest book of poems published in the preceding year.

In a recent review of the book, The Southern Literary Review said, "Spanning five decades of Blanchard’s writing, the volume is both a compilation of 53 finely crafted poems and a thoughtful extended meditation on the creative process. It is, simply put, a book worth waiting for and a splendid collection."

Michael Blanchard is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he majored in literature and creative writing with a minor in Religious Studies. At Virginia, he was an Echols Scholar, was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and twice won the University Union Fine Arts Award for Poetry. He also earned an M.A. degree in English from Indiana University and completed additional graduate study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As with all Sundays@4 presentations, this event is open to the public with no charge for admission.