Distinguished poet and critic Alicia Ostriker will speak at Manhattan College on Nov. 14 to conclude the College’s Major Author Reading Series (M.A.R.S.) for the fall semester. Ostriker has published 14 volumes of poetry including The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems 1979-2011.
The final event of the series will be held at 5 p.m. in Hayden Hall, room 100. It is free and open to the public. M.A.R.S. is co-sponsored by the College’s English department and the School of Arts, in cooperation with the Women and Gender Studies program this semester.
Ostriker’s poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Paris Review and Yale Review among various other journals and anthologies. Her works The Little Space (1998) and The Crack in Everything (1996) received national recognition and qualified as National Book Award Finalists. The Book of Seventy was also honored with the 2009 National Jewish Book Award for poetry, and The Imaginary Lover was a winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. Her forthcoming book, The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog will be released in the winter of 2014.
Ostriker’s works are known to investigate the themes of family, social justice, Jewish identity and personal growth. The Jerusalem Post said, “What does American Jewish poetry sound like? At its best, it can sound like Alicia Suskin Ostriker …”
Designed to engage and expose students to contemporary literature, M.A.R.S. has brought several notable writers to campus for readings and book signings since its inception in 2010. They include: The New York Times Sunday Book Review Editors’ Choice winners Josh Weil and Honor Moore; Pulitzer Prize-winners Junot Diaz, Jennifer Egan and Claudia Emerson; and Marie Howe, the current Poet Laureate of New York state.