News Renowned Poet Hayden Carruth reads at Marlboro College, May 4

Marlboro, VT -- (April 23, 2008) -– Hayden Carruth will give a free, public reading of his poetry in the Whittemore Theater at Marlboro College on Sunday, May 4 at 3:00 p.m.

The 86 year-old poet rarely reads in public these days due to health concerns and has not read in Vermont for several years. The Brattleboro chapter of the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired is providing a CCTV magnifier to aid him in his preferred, extemporaneous presentation style.
Several of Carruth's best-known poems are about the people and places of northern Vermont, where he lived for many years with his wife, the poet Joe-Anne McLaughlin. His poetry is informed by his political radicalism and sense of cultural responsibility, as well as rural poverty and hardship. He left Vermont to teach at the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University and still resides in upstate New York.

Carruth published his first volume of poetry, The Crow and the Heart, in 1959 and has since published more than thirty books. He received the National Book Award for Poetry in 1996 for Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey: Poems 1991-1995 and the National Critics' Circle Award in 1992 for Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991.

In 1995, Carruth was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He has also received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Vermont Governor's Medal, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, among many others.

A renowned critic, Carruth has also published several prose collections including Sitting In: Selected Writings on Jazz, Blues and Related Topics (1993). His nonfiction work includes Beside the Shadblow Tree: A Memoir of James Loughlin (1999) and Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays (1998).

Carruth will autograph copies of his most recent collection published by Copper Canyon Press, Toward the Distant Islands: New and Selected Poems, which will be on sale in the lobby before and after the presentation. In addition, autographed broadsides of Carruth's poem, ''The Cows at Night'' created by southern Vermont artists Myles Danaher and Dede Cummings will be for sale, with all proceeds donated directly to Hayden Carruth.

This reading is part of Marlboro College's ''On the Record'' series of lectures, presentations and performances in celebration of its 60th anniversary. Information about Carruth and future ''On the Record'' events can be found at www.marlboro.edu.

For more information, contact the Marlboro College Public Relations Department at (802) 251-7644 or pr@marlboro.edu. Event cancellation notices due to inclement weather can be heard at 802-451-7151.

Celebrating 60 years, Marlboro College offers undergraduate education in the liberal arts and, since 1997, graduate study focused on Internet technologies. Its 330 undergraduate students enjoy an 8:1 student-faculty ratio, a voice in governing the community and individualized courses of study on a 350-acre campus in the hills of southern Vermont.

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