Acclaimed poet Phillis Levin will give a reading from her latest collection, An Anthology of Rain, on Saturday, April 26, from 5 to 7 PM at the Cornwall CT Library.

A book signing will follow; admission is free, and refreshments with be served. Registration is required on the library website listed below.

Levin’s poems recently inspired this praise from Pulitzer Prize winning American poet and essayist Vijay Seshadri:

“Phillis Levin’s poetry has been characterized over the past thirty years by an astonishingly consistent excellence. She has written…poems that are precise, feeling-full and piercing, elegant, informed and aware of the world, and rich in the kind of profound play that is a hallmark of real art.”

Perhaps Seshardi was thinking of lines like the following when he wrote that tribute:

There is a needle in the sky
Being threaded now, but the thread is blue:
That is why you cannot see it
Threading its way. When all is said and done
It will keep sewing…

From “A Needle in the Sky”, by Phillis Levin

Please Note: Ms. Levin will also give a poetry workshop at the library on the following day, Sunday April 27. Limited to 12 students. Registration on the library website required.

Levin’s poems have appeared in many well-known publications such as The Atlantic, Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Plume, and The Yale Review.

A Guggenheim Fellow, Levin’s many honors include the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award and fellowships from the Trust of Amy Lowell and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, Levin taught creative writing at The University of Maryland, NYU, and the 92nd Street Y. She is now Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English emerita at Hofstra.

She lives with her husband in New York City and West Cornwall, Connecticut.