Showcasing Boston College poets
In a fitting conclusion to National Poetry Month—which celebrates the importance of poets and poetry in our culture—a double poetry launch will be held on April 30 at Burns Library. It highlights the publication of collections by Boston College faculty members: Maxim D. Shrayer’s Kinship (Finishing Line Press, 2024) and Eric Weiskott’s Chanties: An American Dream (Bottlecap Press, 2023).
The authors will read from their respective books of poetry during the event, which will be moderated by Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Burns Librarian Christian Dupont. English Department professors and poetry collection authors Andrew Sofer (Wave) and Allison Adair (The Clearing) will introduce Shrayer and Weiskott, respectively.
A reception and book signing will conclude the event, which will be held
from at 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in Burns Library’s Fine Print Room.
Maxim D. Shrayer (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies, Shrayer was born in Moscow and emigrated in 1987. The author and editor of more than 25 books in English and Russian, he has published four collections of poetry in Russian, most recently Stikhi iz aipada (Poems from the iPad, Tel Aviv, 2022) and two collections in English, Of Politics and Pandemics and Kinship, which is out this month. [Read a story on Kinship.]
Professor of English, Weiskott, specializes in poetry, poetic meter, and periodization (the division of history into distinct periods), and grew up in Greenport, New York, a whaling village on the east end of Long Island. His poetry chapbook, Chanties: An American Dream "is a shipboard reverie about the American boat we’re all in. Prose poems, lists, and lyrics find their sea legs while musing on a photograph of a lover left on shore," according to the publisher.
A poet and scholar of poetry and poetics, Weiskott also authored the scholarly monograph Meter and Modernity in English Verse, 1350–1650. His poems have appeared in Fence, Texas Review, and Exacting Clam.
Eric Weiskott (Photo by Caitlin Cunningham)
“Chanties weaves together my interests in music, prose poetry, U.S. politics, literary history, and our collective experiences of living on this planet,” Weiskott said upon its publication. Of the upcoming event, he added: “I am excited to share poems from my recent chapbook with the BC community. [Professor of English] Suzanne Matson and so many other colleagues in the English Department have always been very supportive of my creative writing.”
“Dr. Weiskott grew up in a small maritime community and is well versed in songs of the sea and the maritime imprint on our lives through literature,” according to a recent review of Chanties by Ocean Navigator, which cites his “clear observational style.” His chapbook’s 21 poems “are written in free verse, yet the simplicity of the form belies the depth of the observations and the sly humor.”
The event is open to the public free of charge. It is sponsored by Boston College Libraries, the English and Eastern, Slavic, and German Studies departments, the East European and Eurasian Studies Program, and the Boston College Bookstore.
For more information, visit the BC Events Calendar.