This first reading of the Summer Sunset Series begins with two remarkable poets. Of Rachel Hadas, the poet Grace Schulman has written, “The poems are urgent, contemplative, and finely wrought. In them, antiquity illuminates the present as Rachel Hadas finds in ordinary human acts ‘what never was and what is eternal.’” And poet Derek Walcott says of Mervyn Taylor, “He has the patience of a whittler: both his work and his bearing remind me of what Lowell called ‘an angry wren-like vigilance,’ perhaps without the anger…the sense of search, of the avoidance of flash, mutes his meters to an admirable degree, and the tone, which he found remarkably early, keeps him separate and unique.”

Rachel Hadas is a poet, professor, essayist and translator. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, essays, and translations. Most recent publications include The River of Forgetfulness (Wordtech Communications, 2006); Laws (2004); Indelible (2001); Halfway Down the Hall: New & Selected Poems (1998)—a finalist for the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; The Empty Bed (1995); The Double Legacy (1995); Mirrors of Astonishment (1992); and Living in Time (1990). She is currently a Board of Governors Professor of English. Rachel has also served as faculty of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Among her honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant, and an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in New York City.

Mervyn Taylor is a Trinidad-born poet who divides his time between Brooklyn, New York and his island home. He has read to diverse audiences, and his work has appeared in such journals as St. Ann’s Review, Sulfur and Rattapallax, in BigCityLit, the online journal, and in the recent anthology, Chance of A Ghost. He is the author of three volumes of poetry, An Island of His Own, The Goat, and the recently published Gone Away, all from Junction Press. He can be heard reading his poetry on the cd Road Clear, accompanied by renowned bassist David Happy Williams.

All readings include a question & answer period and a reception with books by the author(s) for sale.

Suggested Donation: $5 ($3 for HVWC members and those under age 18)

Programs and events at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center are made possible, in part, by grants from the Bydale Foundation, the David G. Taft Foundation, the Orchard Foundation, and the Thendara Foundation; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and by the Basic Program Support Grant of the Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government.

Return to HVWC Calendar

The Hudson Valley Writers' Center - Home