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October 2, 2008 Contact: Scott Rappaport (831) 459-2496; srapp@ucsc.edu UCSC to host community celebration of environmental poet Robinson Jeffers
UCSC will present A Celebration of Central Coast Poet Robinson Jeffers, on Saturday, October 25, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Hall in downtown Santa Cruz. The event is part of the National Endowment for the Arts' The Big Read: The Poetry of Robinson Jeffers—a commemoration of the late poet and of Tor House, Jeffers' family home in Carmel. It is the result of an NEA partnership with the Poetry Foundation to celebrate the nation's historic poets and poetry sites. UC Santa Cruz, the Robinson Jeffers Tor Foundation, and the National Steinbeck Center each received grants earlier this year from the NEA to host a range of activities centered on Jeffers' life and work. The NEA has also provided educational and promotional materials to local schools—including reader's and teacher's guides—in support of these events. UCSC's Oct. 25 event will feature renowned poets Adrienne Rich, Li-Young Lee, Mark Jarman, and Gary Young reading Jeffers' poetry, in addition to their own works. Award-winning students from UCSC and Santa Cruz High will also read their Jeffers-inspired poetry. Stanford emeritus professor and noted Jeffers expert Albert Gelpi, and Tor House Foundation vice president Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts, will also discuss the life of Jeffers and Tor House. The celebration concludes with a staged scene from Jeffers’ 1946 adaptation of the Greek drama, Medea. Jeffers wrote about the beauty and brutality of nature, and he is one of environmentalism's most forceful poet advocates. Featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1932, his major works include the Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems (1925) and The Women at Point Sur (1927). He died in 1962. The UCSC event is co-sponsored by Poetry Santa Cruz, a local organization "dedicated to bringing poetry to the larger community in Santa Cruz County," and by the Porter Hitchcock Poetry Fund. Admission is free and the public is invited. For more information, contact Barb Sisson in the UCSC Humanities Division at
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