Department of Writing and Linguistics presents Andrew Hudgins in collaboration with Georgia Poetry Circuit

January 17, 2014

The Department of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University, in partnership with the Georgia Poetry Circuit, presents critically acclaimed poet Andrew Hudgins on Thursday, February 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Information Technology, Room 1005.

“We are excited to start the semester off by showcasing Andrew Hudgins,” said Eric Nelson, a professor in the Department and coordinator of the event. “Hudgins has been praised throughout his career for his striking ability to embody the Southern Gothic tradition and for his skills in dark humor, formal control, and adept handling of voice. Georgia Southern students should not miss this opportunity to see and hear such a master of his craft.”

Hudgins has published nine collections of poetry, including Saints and Strangers, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and The Never-Ending, a finalist for the National Book Award. His After the Lost War, a series of dramatic monologues recounting the life and Civil War experience of Georgia poet Sidney Lanier, won the prestigious Poet’s Prize. Hudgins has received the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. In 2013, he published both a book of poems, A Clown at Midnight, and a memoir, The Joker.

Hudgins’ reading is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Nelson at enelson@georgiasouthern.edu.

In
by Andrew Hudgins

When we first heard from blocks away
the fog truck’s blustery roar,
we dropped our toys, leapt from our meals,
and scrambled out the door

into an evening briefly fuzzy.
We yearned to be transformed—
translated past confining flesh
to disembodied spirit. We swarmed

in thick smoke, taking human form
before we blurred again,
turned vague and then invisible,
in temporary heaven.

Freed of bodies by the fog,
we laughed, we sang, we shouted.
We were our voices, nothing else.
Voice was all we wanted.

The white clouds tumbled down our streets
pursued by spellbound children
who chased the most distorting clouds,
ecstatic in the poison.

from Ecstatic in the Poison (Overlook Press, 2003)