April is
National Poetry Month and UNCG is celebrating with
a conference on Victorian culture and poetry.
The Victorians Institute
conference, “The
Nine Lives of Victorian Poetry,” will bring
more than 70 poets and scholars to Greensboro on April
1 and 2 for a weekend of panels, discussions and readings
by contemporary poets. The event is sponsored by the
Women’s and
Gender Studies Program and the Department
of English.
Registration
begins at 1 p.m. April 1 in the Curry Building on
Spring Garden Street. Registration for the full conference
is $30 for graduate students and $90 for all others.
The Victorians Institute is an organization of mid-Atlantic
scholars and students who study Victorian writing,
art and culture. Their annual conferences feature
speakers, papers and other events concerning the era.
Dr. Mary Ellis Gibson, director of Women’s and
Gender Studies at UNCG, is president of the organization.
Institute events include:
• Six conference sessions with 23 panel choices,
including such topics as post-modern interpretations
of Victorian poems, religion and politics in Victorian
poetry, erotic and aesthetic elements, and Victorian
poets such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, Robert Browning and lesser-known poets.
• A reading by UNCG poet Julia Johnson, prize-winning
Greensboro poet Sarah Lindsay and poet David Rigsbee
of Raleigh at 7 p.m. April 1 in Elliott University
Center. Registration is not required to attend the
reading, which is free and open to the public.
• A plenary lecture by Tricia Lootens, associate
professor of English at the University of Georgia.
Lootens will discuss the connections between African-American
and British women poets in the 19th century at 4:15
p.m. April 2 in Elliott University Center. Registration
is not required to attend the lecture, which is free
and open to the public.
For registration and further information call the
UNCG Department of English at (336) 334-5311, Women’s
and Gender Studies at (336) 334-5673, e-mail
or visit
the institute web site.
