Wordsmiths Reading Series Launches Friday

Bucks County Community College will launch its 2011-2012 Wordsmiths Reading Series Friday at 7:30 p.m.

The free series is open to the public and will feature six events through April. To kick off the series, two local poets will be present for readings Friday.

Award-winning poet Iain Haley Pollock will be joined by 2000 Bucks County Poet Laureate Joseph Chelius for the event, which will take place in the Orangery on the

Pollock is the author of "Spit Back a Boy," which won the 2010 Cave Canem poetry prize. 

Pollock, a Philadelphia resident, teaches English at Springside-Chestnut Hill Academy. He is a graduate of Haverford College and holds an M.F.A. from Syracuse University.

Chelius, a Philadelphia native who has lived in Bucks County for nearly 20 years, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, "Taking Pitches" and "Row House Yards." He holds a B.A. from La Salle University and an M.S. from Temple University.

“Both poets’ work is remarkably accessible, bravely speaking to the human condition,” said Dr. Christopher Bursk, a published poet and a longtime professor at BCCC. Bursk coordinates the Wordsmiths Reading Series. “They both have the ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and to celebrate our human spirit," Bursk said.

Other events in the Wordsmiths Reading Series include:

• Novelist and biographer Edmund White, Nov.4 
• Poet Martha Rhodes, Dec. 2
• Poets James Richardson and Ethel Rackin, Feb. 17
• April Linder, March 30
• Authors Mark Doty and Paul Lisicky, April 27

The Wordsmiths Reading Series is another way that Bucks County Community College contributes to the region’s cultural heritage, school officials said. The series is presented by the college’s Cultural Affairs Task Force, Cultural Programming Committee and Department of Language and Literature.

For more information, call the department at 215-968-8150 or visit www.bucks.edu/cultural.