Brown University Library News

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – At 5:30pm on Wednesday, March 21, 2012, Brown/Ziggurat Press will host a reading and book signing in the John Hay Library for BREATHTAKEN, a long poem by CD Wright with visual accompaniments by Walter Feldman. Following the reading, there will be a reception in the foyer during which visitors can view displayed books, and purchase copies for Walter Feldman and CD Wright to sign. This event is free and open to the public.

As Feldman explains “BREATHTAKEN is a dark and moving poem, appropriate to my way of making images.” BREATHTAKEN is a Brooke Hunt Mitchell Distinguished Artist Series book, presented in an accordion style, housed in a stunning cover, and featuring original block prints on archival paper. It is published in a numbered edition of 75, and is offered for purchase at $150 plus tax. Purchases of the book support the continuation of work through Brown/Ziggurat Press. If you are unable to attend and would like to purchase a book, contact Friends of the Library at FOL@brown.edu or (401) 863-2163. A short interview with Walter Feldman and a sampling of his previous work in collage and printmaking is available here.

CD Wright was born in 1949, in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She received a BA from Memphis State College (now the University of Memphis) and an MFA from the University of Arkansas. She teaches at Brown University, and has published numerous volumes of poetry as well as two literary state maps. She has received several awards including the 2011 Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Poetry Center Book Award, the Witter Bynner Prize, and a Whiting Award; as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and the Bunting Institute. In 1994 she was named Poet Laureate of Rhode Island.

Walter Feldman was born in 1925 in Lynn, Massachusetts. He received a BFA and MFA  from Yale School of Fine Arts, after which he served as an Instructor of Painting. In 1953 he was appointed to the art faculty at Brown University. He has received numerous awards including a senior Fulbright Fellowship, gold medal in Milan’s “Mostra  International,”  and a George A. and Eliza Gardener Howard Fellowship. His artist’s books are in over 150 public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Albert and Victoria Museum. Feldman inaugurated the Ziggurat Press in 1985 with a book of poems by James Schevill. He acquired a Vandercook press and published a series of books of poetry printed from metal type and relief blocks that he created. In 1995 he was appointed John Hay Professor of Bibliography. In 2007 he retired from teaching and gave his press to Brown. It is now in use in the Art of the Book classes he inaugurated. He continues to work in painting, printmaking and is presently working on a suite of drawings relating to music.

Contact: Jennifer Braga |  401-863-6913

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